On Saturday afternoon, I invited a few of my best girl friends over for some afternoon tea. I’ve been meaning to ask these girls a special question for quite a while and wanted to do so in a creative way.  Finally, the idea came to me that I should throw a tea party! For the past week, I went on a pinterest + DIY + baking frenzy. I think I went to Michael’s almost every day that week (yay for coupons!)

These are homemade lemon cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese frosting and mini raspberry macarons. I made the little flags on Illustrator and it reads “Will you be my” on one side and “bridesmaid?” on the other!

I am absolutely in love with these tissue pompoms. They are super easy to make and looked so great in our living room that we still haven’t taken them down. We used some twine and thumb tacks to hang them from the ceiling.

I am a sucker for sugar cookies. I found this idea on Pinterest from The Baker Chick. Although creating the rose looks daunting, it was relatively simple to do. But don’t get me wrong, I had a tupperware of cookie and cupcake defects for my family’s consumption.

I was debating about how I would prepare the tea for the party. Purchasing a cute little steeper for each guest would have been nice, but way over my budget. After much brainstorming, I thought of creating personalized tea bags! I purchased loose leaf tea from David’s Tea, these huge tea filter bags from Daiso, and some bakers twine from a local craft store. I then created some cute little tags on Illustrator. As I am very lame, I made up new names for the tea – “Chai Love you” for a chai tea, “Mint to Be” for a peppermint tea, “You’re so Grey-t” for an earl grey tea, and “Nuts About You” for a nutty tea. I filled each bag with a teaspoon of tea, folded them into a typical tea bag, stapled and ta-da. I am very happy with how they turned out! I wanted to give the girls some to take home too, so I made little packaging for them and popped them into a goodie bag as you’ll see in the photos below.

My very first idea to ask my girls to be my bridesmaids was to invite them to 49th Parallel on Main Street and have a box filled with a Lucky’s Doughnut with a paper diamond for each of them. I loved this idea because it went with our “Main Street” wedding theme, so I still wanted to do it! Unfortunately, 49th Parallel didn’t give us a tiny box for each girl so instead, I used a half dozen box with all the doughnut “rings” laid inside!

And they all said yes! I’m missing one, but she said yes over the phone too! I was actually really nervous to pop the question. Now I understand how Romel must have felt when he asked me! I really love these girls. Each one has been an important part of my life and has shaped me into the woman I am today. Even though I don’t see them all often, when I do, we always pick up right from where we left. I couldn’t have chosen a greater group of girls!

Yes, more play on words? I know, I’m so lame. I used the Lucky’s paper bags instead of boxes – I think it still worked out well!

The goodie bags! I purchased these paper brown bags at Daiso. Since they were on the plain side and I was strapped for time, I simply traced out a heart and painted it with some metallic gold paint.

Inside the bags, each girl received a sugar cookie, three samples of David’s Tea, a pencil, and a bridesmaid booklet! I made the booklet using InDesign and contains the essentials for a bridesmaid – a calendar to fill with important dates, pages to brainstorm ideas like bridesmaid dresses, places to jot down tasks and things to do, and an address book! Each book has a cardstock cover and is bound with some twine.

I’m really happy with how everything turned out. I wouldn’t be able to have completed everything without the help of my family (who helped with everything – from baking, decorating, taking photos and picking things up), and also Romel (for moral support when I would complain when things went wrong)  & my brother’s girlfriend Tiff (for helping me make those delicious macarons!) And thank you so much for my girls for coming!