When my little sister was about two, she’d walk around the neighborhood in these puffy pink dresses and her little two-year-old boyfriend would call her “Hubba Hubba Heidi.” The name kinda stuck, so that was our shower theme: corsets, pink and black, and H monograms wherever we could add them. My other sis, Kapri, humored me and rubbed H’s onto each plate, soup cup, and glass . . . she really loves me now. (Actually, she’s just as insane in the head as I am.) So here it all is, complete with links to my fave recipes and sources. Note: all good photos taken by Kapri (thanks for sharing). All bad photos taken by moi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can order the rub-on monograms from wongerfulgraffitiwedding.com. My mom created these crazy chic floating flower arrangements – cut the buds short and nestle them in glass vases until you’ve packed them tightly enough that they stand upright.  We were doing this four minutes before people walked in the door, running around, crazed and cursing our OCD selves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite new party trick, learned from my friend Nat’s fancy fab wedding: mini milkshakes. People swoon for these, girls — positively go silly with joy. Here’s my little cheater trick: the milkshake is from McDonald’s — drive-through, get three large shakes, decant them into pretty mini glasses and dress up with chocolate straws. (I charmed the AJ’s pastry chef into letting me buy these.) And here’s the pink corset cake that my mom made (she rocks). She also went to the store for more icing four different times. That’s love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Napkins: we are nerdy overachievers and used real linens, and I cutout 800,000 paper corsets from cardstock, and tied them up with ribbons. The party favors are custom cookies from Favorz, which gave us the whole corset idea in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mini cups of potato leek soup that Kapri made, from scratch, garnished with rosemary, from her garden. And right, our cute crudites we culled from Martha: hollow out portions of baguette, fill with your favorite veggie dip, and tiny veggies. In the end, the guests can eat their bread bowl, already slathered with dip. So smug, but in a very satisfying way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The buffet, left, and the monogrammed plates, right. (And color-coordinated jelly bellies: a staple of our parties just because they match. Did I mention that we’re nuts?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even her gift from me matched. (Those are feather-covered boudoir heels on top.) Isn’t she lovely?