A Sophisticated Kind of Baby Shower

All the family celebrations I have had are memorable and close to my heart. But this Baby Shower was quite a special one.  Already having two little boys that I am very grateful for, I was more than thrilled when I found out that our third child was going to be a girl! For me, this meant that a pretty Baby Shower was on the way!

This Baby Shower of mine was not like the traditional ones given by the girl friends to the mom-to-be. The Hubby and I decided to host a small dinner at home to celebrate the impending arrival of the little one and to get our friends together before the busyness of the Christmas season comes.

Because I have always wanted to have a girl, my favorite girly-girl color of pink was chosen as the theme! But then, I realized that having a daughter meant there will be more pink-themed celebrations later on, I might as well add some “adult” colors to it. So I decided to mix black and white to give the party that more “sophisticated” touch. 🙂

Originally, I planned my Baby Shower to be an evening outdoor party where guests will dine al fresco in our own little backyard. So I had a white tent set-up in the garden on that day…but unfortunately, the weather was not on our side! A few hours before the guests arrived, it started raining so hard, and it looked like it wasn’t just any other rain, but more like a typhoon was coming that same night! Luckily, my friend and stylist Bambi Hernandez and I were not without a Plan B!

 We then moved the set-up and the decors inside – except of course for the tent – which was left soaking wet in the garden! Since we didn’t have a a lot of space inside the house, we decided to just connect two long tables to form one long dining table and set it up right in the middle of the living area. Our actual dining room was then converted to become the buffet station area.

Not wanting to scrap the whole idea of using the beautiful lanterns (which I had originally intended for the inside of the tent), we had to think quickly and plan how to install them inside the house. Because our ceiling is quite high, the challenge was where to hang them. We then rushed to the the nearest hardware store and bought rolls of strings and wires that we connected from one wall to the other. Soon enough, the pink and white lanterns were tied with black satin ribbons and were hung at different lengths making the whole dinner event look cozier and prettier. 🙂

Our caterer for the night was our favorite Kai Japanese Restaurant. They have done some of our parties before (click here to see the last celebration we had with them) and their food are consistently good and their service always excellent.

Here’s what we had :

Soft Shell Crab Roll

Baked Lemon-Herbed Salmon

Grilled Salmon Belly Yakitori

Grilled Shitake Mushroom Yakitori

Truffle pasta with Asparagus and Mushrooms

Wasabi Oysters

16-hour Kurobota Pork Belly and Roasted US Angus Beef Belly with Horseradish and Ponzu sauce

And of course, my favorite part..the Desserts!

I wanted my dessert table to look very pretty and coordinated with the rest of my theme – so I ordered sweets that will only match my pink, black and white color scheme! 🙂

I had a baby fondant cake in pink, black and white made by Swell Sweets

Strawberry Cheesecake from Sweet Bella

(For cakes with fruit toppings, I only like those that use fresh fruits. I cannot appreciate fruit preserves, frozen fruits or canned fruits on cakes, so this was a good choice.)

Chocolate Trio Mousse by Sweet Bella

Tiny little French Macarons in pink, black and white which I had customized in Valrhona and Salted Caramel flavors.  This was done beautifully by Petite Patisserie, who specializes in all things petite!

Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses that says “It’s a girl” (which I got from my last US trip; this is available in most candy stores there)

This Baby Shower was a dinner for 20 of our closest friends. I prefer hosting smaller, more intimate dinners at home instead of throwing big ones. With a smaller group, I am able to catch up with each and everyone and at the same time, I know my guests will feel more valued and more comfortable this way.  So even though this baby shower of mine was not the traditional one and has less guests than the usual, it still was fun, enjoyable and very memorable!

The rain and the sudden change of plans certainly didn’t dampen our spirits – although admittedly, it stressed the pregnant Mummy a bit! 🙂 Moving the whole event from the garden to inside our home actually proved to be a better idea, and made the whole place look lovelier and the guests felt more at home. With plan B finally in place, the night still ended beautifully… with all our friends sending the excited Mummy-to-be and the Baby their heartfelt well wishes.