Bridal Breakfast Prima Doll Menus

Hello friends.  In Wednesday's blog post I shared the wedding invitation to Bethany and John's wedding.  One of the inserts was an invitation to the bridesmaids and women of the families.  This post will share a bit more detail on the Bridal Breakfast.

The bridal breakfast was held at the historic Willcox Inn in the historic district of Aiken.  Aiken has a rich equestrian heritage that dates to the late 1800s.  The Willcox is one of our treasured buildings from that era.  Today the Willcox is a lavish spa, hotel, and restaurant.  It was recently featured in Southern Living's wedding section.  I scheduled the breakfast at the Willcox for two reasons - the history and beauty of the building, and the elegant relaxed atmosphere.  Not to mention that the food is wonderful.

We had 35 women gather at 9:00 am the morning of Bethany's wedding to enjoy girl-only time and to start the day in a fun and relaxing way, ensuring that everyone had breakfast!  In the photo above, my college roommate, Mary - right (who came from Michigan to SC for the wedding!), chats one of John's aunts.

We were seated at four different table, but all in the same library room setting.  In the photo above, the groom's aunts, stepmother, and nephew (our only male companion) enjoy coffee and juice while awaiting our food.

Our favorite local florist delivered lovely hydrangea centerpieces to the Willcox for the breakfast.  After the breakfast, while the bride and bridesmaids went for manicures, I dropped off the centerpieces at the reception venue to be used on the buffet tables.

My daughter has "a thing" for elephants, in particular, lucky elephants.  She tells me that when the trunk is raised the elephant is lucky.  I found these tiny raised trunk elephant place card holders and just KNEW we had to use these at the breakfast.  My mom wrote all of the attendees names on the place cards.

The Willcox offered to print simple place menus for our guests, but I wanted something less formal, more fun, and unique.  I decided to use the Prima Doll Stamps, Prima tags, and flowers & gems from my stash to create fun, individual place menus.

I used ledger card stock to create the doll bodies and assorted small print card stock to create the dolls' dresses.  I used Copic markers to add color to the bodies and to change the details on the dresses. I added  brick stencils and color highlights to the cards.   Most of the ladies took their menus as a keepsake.  I was happy that they liked them so much.

We had a limited menu with a choice of two entrees:  French Toast with Cinnamon Apple compote and Bacon Eggs Benedict.  I chose the Bacon Eggs Benedict, but I noticed that the choices were fairly evenly split.  In addition to unlimited coffee and juices, the guest also had the choice of a side dish:  Bacon, Fruit, or (as a reminder that we ARE in SC) Cheese Grits.  Most of the ladies were from areas other than the southeast so it was fun sharing some of the local fare with them.

In addition to thanking everyone for helping us to start the day in such a happy, upbeat way, we also used this as an opportunity to assist Bethany with her "something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue".   When Grandma Edwards passed away in late March, Beth inherited a lovely Cameo broach.  Bethany pinned the broach to her bridal bouquet and it served as her something old.  Her something new was the pearl and elephant wrap bracelet in the photo above.  It looked wedding-ish, yet fun too.  I had this bracelet made for her as her something new and she loved it.  Her something borrowed was a mint penny from her birth year loaned to her by her Matron of Honor.  And her something blue was/is her fabulous engagement ring.

A photo of me with our bride on her wedding day!

One last peek at one of the menu cards, above.  And a photo of the Edwards ladies and my mom, below.  Left to right are Doug's niece Kyndall, his sister Joan, his sister-in-law Toyetta (Kyndall's mom), our great niece Ellie, Bethany, Me, my mom, my son Aaron's fiance Crissie, our sister-in-law Lisa, and our niece Julie - Ellie's mom.

I am hoping for more photos from the photograph over the weekend end.  You will know next week if they arrive as I will be able to share a couple of more wedding crafts.

Thanks for stopping my today!