{showers | an OMG baby shower | details & decor}

I know I set a goal to blog more often at the beginning of the year and I still intend to fulfill that goal but this first half of 2013 has been extremely busy. I know that I have to schedule specified time for blogging so I can continue to share with all of you these special events & weddings that I have been so fortunate to be a part of and all the daily musings of life. I have so many things coming up for the blog within the next few weeks - a CARS birthday party for two special brothers, a vendor highlight on one of our fave photographers (it's been a while since our last vendor highlight!), a personal post for you to get to know the person behind Premier Soirees (that's ME!) and a very special baby shower to welcome the arrival of my first ever niece - OMG!

When my sister Leah first shared with me that they were expecting last October, I was thrilled for them and also for our families. This meant a lot of first for many of us. She is Leah & Kevin's first child. She is the first grand child on both sides of our families. Most of all she is my first ever niece. I can't begin to tell you in this post how extremely close Leah & I are so to have this little girl joining our circle is just a blessing. When they announced that they were expecting a little girl, they shared with us the name that they chose for her - Olivia Madeline Garcia. OMG!! Yes my sister's very clever that way that she thinks what initials the baby would have.

I knew that I wanted to plan a very special & girly baby shower for Leah as she prepares to welcome Olivia in the next few months. As I was building my inspiration boards for the shower like I typically do when I start designing an event, I kept drawing inspirations from lots of peaches, mint and blush.

The Whitten Center in Placentia was a wonderful location for our event since it was a great blank canvas to work with. Since it was a shower for all of their friends and families, we were expecting about 150 guests to join us in the celebration. Luscious springtime florals that included green hydrangeas, peach roses and ranunculus were created by my mom out of vases & jars that we've collected in the past as well as flowers from the Los Angeles Flower District. We dressed each table with these florals and glittered animals that added an extra glam to each table. We also found some slabs of wood that we wanted to incorporate in the decor so they became stands for some of our centerpieces.

I have been wanting to re-create these hanging fringe garlands that I saw on Oh Happy Day and this shower gave me the perfect opportunity to create this. I just followed the simple step by step instructions they provided on their blog and away we went with some coral colored crepe paper. The garland made the perfect backdrop for our dessert table and made for perfect backdrop for pictures as well. Also made a tassel garland for added color in our dessert table.

We brought in some of Leah's favorite sweet treats from the fabulous Sweet & Saucy Shop in Long Beach as part of the decadent dessert table. We had mini cheesecakes with fresh raspberries, mini cappucino cheesecakes, nutella macarons and salted caramel macarons. We also  added in a few extra like mini donuts from Krispy Kreme, chocolate dipped pretzels and rice krispy treats. Since Leah's birthday was a few days prior to the baby shower, we also had a very rich Parisian chocolate cake from Portos. I think this is one of my all time favorite chocolate cakes ever.

Guests were welcomed by our wishing tree where guests filled wishing cards for Olivia and some guessing game items that were part of our games. We used some of Olivia's items like her first ballerina slippers and the letters of her name covered in peach yarn to create small vignettes.

We gifted all of the guests including our little guests with favors that they can enjoy after the party. We used clear boxes and filled them with vanilla animal crackers tied with yarn and topped with the daintiest crochet flowers. My mom hand crocheted each of these dainty flowers to use for the favor boxes and also made them into hair clips for each of the little girls that came to join the shower. The kids also went away with a small bag filled with snacks for the drive home.

Since Leah's a big fan of Instagram like most us Instagram fanatics, we created a personal hashtag (#omgpartyof3) that guests can use to post photos that they take at the shower. Here's some of the best photos that won a special prize from us.

This is definitely one of our favorite wish card! They hope she becomes a Jedi! :)

We wanted to thank all of our guests who came out to join us to celebrate Olivia and her mommy & daddy. A special thank you also goes out to the wonderful husband and wife team of Desi & Tammy Mendoza of Dez and Tam Photography who took all of the wonderful pictures of this awesome celebration.  Desi & Tammy were great to work with - did not even feel like they were vendors more like guests since they knew some of our close friends.

To my love bug niece Olivia - everyone in the family is so excited to have you as part of our life but I am most excited to be your aunt, your tita, your Ninang, your tea party date and your shopping buddy. I can't wait to read you bedtime stories, sing you to sleep, play house with you, get our first Drybar experience and take you to tea time. I love you and can't wait for many more first with you.