She's on top of the world

So my big birthday wasn't the true purpose of our trek back to Pennsylvania in June.  As important as 30th's are, and despite the significance of a baby's birth (even a fourth baby), there is one event this summer that my portion of the family tree just can't top.  And that would be Uncle Jared and Miss Kylee's wedding in August!

You can just imagine the flurry of activity we're experiencing this summer.  Not to mention the piles of lace and tulle in my guest room.  The countless hours spent shopping for wedding weekend attire for our little family (that we're counting on being bigger by that day!) and the all those other details that I keep seeming to forget until inopportune moments.  And we're not even the bride's family!

How well do you know the couple quiz.

Thankfully the matron of honor/sister of the bride has got it together, because she pulled off the most genius bridal shower I've been to yet.  Now, there are people like me, the imitators in this world who spend our time on Etsy and Pinterest scanning ideas to copy.  Then there are people like Abi, the movers and the shakers, who actually come up with those ideas on the internet for the rest of us to copy.  I will always admire those kind of people ... and happily follow their lead!

So when Abi suggested the theme of "She's on top of the world" I just nodded my head enthusiastically and told her to put me to work... imitating whatever visuals she had swirling around in that uber-creative brain of hers.  Thus, the invitations were born.  Although these came from my computer and printer, please note that I could have never thought of something like this on my own.  I borrowed all inspiration from an online image and I'm not ashamed to say it.

There's this fantastic coffee house back home in Williamsport.  I was never there before this day but I'll most certainly make it a regular occurrence when I'm in town from now in.  It was just simply amazing!  And the perfect setting for wishing our favorite bride-to-be well in her new future!

Aunt and Mother of the Bride.

Sister and Niece of the Bride.

In which the Mother of the Groom find out she doesn't know her son as well as she thought!

Uncle Micah pulled a baby shift at the end of the shower so we could clean up!

In accordance with the "world" theme we added a few globes we could find, one spray-painted gold, and also used an old atlas as the guestbook.  Abi found a tutorial for making flowers and other decor out of maps, and I just so happened to come across an entire box of old maps at a yard sale for $1.00.  She spray-painted some bottles gold to set around the room in addition to some amazing vintage suitcases.

Abi suggested a world map pillow for the bride's chair and, since we make such a grand team, I was able to find a great deal on some fabric from France to make our own.

And then there was the food.  Oh, the food.  Let me tell you, my little brother is marrying in to quite the delicious family.  I'm really going to need to step things up a notch.

For favors Abi made homemade peanut butter cups with a world map on top.  And although I printed off the tags, the message was all her doing: "Thanks for coming, we think the world of you!"  See what I mean?  I could have spent hours Googling "world-themed thank you messages" and never come up with something so clever.  I'm just in awe.  I need more creative people in my life.

The shower went off splendidly!  Miss Kylee is now well on her way to becoming mistress of her own house... just as soon as Uncle Jared finds said house.

We'll let them worry about that for now though, since we have bigger issues to be concerned with.  Like what color of shoes the Little Miss will wear that day ... or perhaps even more important, just how many days old will she be at the wedding?  I would say that all this anxiety is about to put me in labor, but at this point, that would not be a bad thing!