Gold Parisian Bridal Shower

It turns out that not only is Julie Harmsen one talented photographer, she also knows how to throw one heck of a bridal shower. For her friend Nicole’s celebration party, Julie brought together vintage details with a bit of Parisian flair and quirkiness for one picture-perfect shower. Evidently Nicole is known for her retro style, and we can see why — couldn’t you just live in her vintage frock from Pretty Parlor?

From the photographer, Julie Harmsen: Nicole is a total babe and is always wearing a fabulous vintage piece of clothing along with stunning red lips. She loves gold and is also spending her honeymoon in France so I wanted to incorporate those two things into the shower. Googling inspiration for Parisian themed parties brings up a lot of cheesy things and I wanted to be sure to gently incorporate the Parisian elements rather than batting the party over the head with it. I downloaded a free Parisian themed font for her wedding invite and printed it on top of some already made Paper Source gold dotted invitations.

We didn’t want to go heavy on the shower games either and just had one questionnaire finding out who knows Nicole and her fiance, Nate, the best. In the design of those I incorporated the simple black and white stripes that is often seen in Parisian design. We snacked on macarons, lemon tarts, croissants, cheeses, chocolate treats and sipped champagne. The gold vases were my favorite diy craft and I purchased them at Archie McPhee and found some other various vases at Goodwill. Some of the vases I taped half of them and then spray painted the untaped half, then peeled away the tape once dry. I was thrilled with how it turned out. The vases with the drips was done by holding the spray can directly over the vase until it collected enough paint and started to drip down the side. The glitter vases was done the same way with the tape and the I sprayed glue adhesive and sprinkled gold sparkles on it. To add some pops of color I bought some tulips and pussy willow from the Pikes Place Market and ranunculas from another market, arranging them together. I had the blue vintage fabric in the back of my car and threw it on the food table to add a vintage aspect.