Tea ~ Mad Hatters Tea Shower

Welcome to Tea Time 2025. These posts will be about Tea Rooms we’ve been to, Teas we’ve given for friends and family, Church Tea events, and High Tea in restaurants from 2008 to the present. Tea in the U.S.A., Tea in England and Tea in Canada. Many of the Tea Rooms are no longer in business, which is sad.

In April of 2008 my sisters and mom were invited to a Mad Hatter Tea Party Bridal Shower. This will be the original post from April 27, 2008.

On Saturday I drove 90 miles from Camarillo to Newport Beach to attend a shower for our future niece, Jessica, who is marrying my brother Steve’s son, Timothy. Timothy’s lovely mother is my SIL Kelly.

Oh, the destination and the setting and the beautiful ladies that we got to spend the afternoon with made the 180 mile round-trip so worth it.

The table was set perfectly for our Mad Hatter Tea. We gave thanks to the Lord for this wonderful occasion and began the festivities.

Jessica with her friends and most of these ladies will be her bridesmaids. Our hostess, Michelle, to the left of Jessica

Michelle, the maid of honor, was our hostess and the setting was in her parents gated community in Newport Beach. I can’t even begin to guess what the HOA fees are in this wonderful setting. Did I just say that out loud?

Ellen b. in a hat, you won’t see that everyday.

It was a Mad Hatter Tea which meant we were all required to wear hats. My SIL Letty and me. Jessica, the Guest of Honor. Jessica opening her Samovar from my mother and a tablecloth that my mother made when she was 12 years old (that would have been in Tehran, Iran) The last photo is of the daughters and daughter in laws with my mom. Letty, Vera, My Mom, Kathy, Ellen b, and Kelly.

Three of my lovely nieces, Melissa, Debbee and Michelle.

After we had our Tea/Lunch we walked over to the Rose Garden in the Community.

My hat won me a prize along with the great hat on the right that the mother of the hostess wore! I won a wonderful lavender scented candle.

We are having a very hot weekend in Southern California. See that 100 degrees for the outside temperature next to my odometer. That registered when I was driving home and reached the San Fernando Valley. Hot, hot, hot for Spring around here! (Looks like I need to dust off my dash!)

Made it home in good time praising our God for the blessing of family and friends to enjoy life with on this earth.

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”
~2 Thessalonians 2: 16,17

Shower of Blessings!

Our whole family was together in Eastern Washington this past weekend to celebrate our son and future DIL’s wedding shower and we worked in some other fun events together, too.

The Bridal shower for Jamie was hosted at her Granny’s home.

Granny has quite a view out her kitchen window.

It was fun to get to meet many of Jamie’s friends.

Tami and our daughter Katie are two of the bridesmaids. Tami on the left hosted the shower.

We enjoyed watching Jamie open her many gifts. Her matron of honor was by her side recording each item.

Jamie with her mom and granny.

Jamie with her mom, granny, and dear family friend Sylvia.

Mom and daughter.

Our girls, dil Laura, future dil Jamie and our daughter Katie.

When the shower was over and most of the guests were gone we helped get a couple things done for the wedding reception. Many hands make light work!

After the work was done we made a trip out to the venue so we could be able to visualize the route and site.

Beautiful views on the road to the venue.

It was good to make the trip out and to know what to expect. We then traveled back to Dan’s house to see what the guys had been up to while we were partying. I’ll share our evening together in my next post.

Sweet Marie…

On Saturday Lana, Laura and I were able to attend a bridal shower for our nephew Caleb’s bride to be, Marie. The shower was given by her aunt and cousins. Marie has a large supportive family and it was nice to meet a lot of them.

You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day in the greater Seattle area for a shower. Marie’s side of the family hails from this area and we were happy to be able to join in the fun. Our nephew Caleb and many of our family live in Southern California. The wedding is going to take place in Southern California.

Our sweet Marie with her aunt and cousins who collaborated to host the shower.

It was fun to watch Marie open each gift.

Marie with her mom and with her great grandmother and her paternal grandmother.

Cousins on the top and Marie with both grandmother’s, her mom, and great grandmother.

We loved meeting Great Grandmother! She is a fabulous 95!

Sweet Marie! We are looking forward to seeing her walk down the aisle at the Blueberry Farm/Ranch in Southern California to be married to our nephew Caleb. Our side of the family is having a shower for Marie the later part of July in Southern California.

After the shower Lana, Laura and I headed back to our house and met up with our hubbies to head out to dinner and celebrate a belated Father’s Day meal.

Another relatively quiet week ahead for me…sigh of relief. We are narrowing down the choices for our new carpeting. We are still overwhelmed with the idea that we have to empty out the rooms that will be re-carpeted. What’s ahead for you this week?

An Interlude…

…from my postcards. Because it snowed this morning in Milan and the weather is overall cold and wet I have some spare time on my hands today and decided I’d go back to sunny Southern California and continue on my posts from my niece Debbee’s shower. Later today a postcard will pop up from the opera house so I thought my interlude title for this post was appropriate.

The shower decor…

My niece Michelle hand made these cute little jar candles for each guest to take home.

Fresh flowers from the L.A. Flower market that my niece Melissa arranged in several different containers.

The gift table…

Niece Jessica made the shower cloud with rain drops…

Michelle or Melissa or both of them made this ribbon banner.

The main ideas for the shower were from Michelle and Melissa and they called on family and friends to gather up the items needed to pull it off. Many hands contributed to putting the ideas into the final result. Working together with my family is always a fun time. Thank you Michelle for opening your home to us for this special event.

2 more days in Milan and then we make the long trip home. Hope y’all are doing well…

Of Showers and Blessings…

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps
covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,
to a thousand generations, (Deuteronomy 7:9, ESV)

The next bride in our family, Debbee.

Our family had a bridal shower for our niece Debbee this past Sunday in California. The shower was at our niece Michelle’s home. This first photo is of my mom with all the granddaughters that could attend the shower.

Debbee with her Baba.

My sister Vera is Debbee’s mom.

Deb with her mom and future mom in law

My three sisters with our mom. Lana, Kathy, Nadia (mom), Ellen and Vera.

Our cousins on my mom’s side of the family were able to attend the shower. My mom only had one brother who had 2 sons and 2 daughters. His two daughters are in this photo along with one of his DIL’s.

This one also has 2 of my mom’s DIL’s in the photo (my SIL’s). Top row Letty, Lana, Kathy, Kelly, Debbie, Tanya. Seated are Valia, Vera, Nadia, and Ellen.

My sister Vera has 2 children. David is married to Kristin on Vera’s left. Kristin, Vera, Vera, Debbee, Debbee, Lenny’s mom Linda, and Lenny’s sister Tina.

Debbee’s Bridesmaids

The cousins at the shower…Melissa, Michelle, Kristin, Debbee, Jess, Katie, and Laura.

My niece Melissa and my niece Debbee were roommates for 10 years! They are both adjusting to a new place to live until their next chapter begins.

My girls and my sister Kathy’s girls.

Debbee and me.

My family does not take lightly the blessings that God has showered us with. The times we have together filled with love, fun, and laughter will always be cherished and enjoyed.

I will share photos of the food and table settings at another time.

Tomorrow Dear and I are headed to Milan, Italy. Time will tell how much I can keep up with all the happenings online. Blessings.

She Loved it…

My niece Debbee’s shower was so lovely. The embroidered pillow Katie and I traveled to Canada to purchase from Winks Home Garden & Gifts was a big hit.

We are still running down here in Southern California. I’ll share detailed shots from the trip and shower sometime soon. We fly home tonight. Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

A Mermaid Bridal Shower…

We are blessed this year with weddings in March, April and May! Saturday past I was honored to attend the Mermaid Bridal Shower for our dear friend Lucy. Lucy’s sister Bridget carried out the theme beautifully as you will see in my photos. Lucy’s youngest sister Jamie was our Katie’s Maid of Honor.

Dear and I became friends with Lucy’s parents when we all lived in Ventura, California. Lucy’s father delivered our daughter Katie in Ventura in 1985. Lucy’s mom Jody has been a really good friend and walking buddy to me for many years. We thank God for our friendship.

The mermaid/sea theme was great with shrimp and sushi and a sand castle cake.

See the little mermaids dangling on the champagne flutes?

Bridget made these seashell tiaras to use for photos with all the guests.

How wonderful to take the time to pray over the bride for her and her groom at the bridal shower.

Lucy with our DIL Laura

Our hostess Bridget with the guest of honor Lucy and our DIL Laura. Our son Josh and our DIL Laura are standing on Lucy’s side at the wedding along with Bridget and her husband and Lucy’s youngest sister Jamie. I really like that idea of having people that are close to you as couples or singles standing with you.

I’m linking up with Kathleen at Cuisine Kathleen for Let’s Dish. Let’s Dish comes on line at 7:00 P.M. on Wednesday nights.

FFF ~ Thankful for…

It’s time to join Susanne at Living to Tell the Story for our favorites from this past week. So many things to be thankful for. Most likely this will be the last FFF I will be able to participate in till late December.

1. Just getting ready for our Thanksgiving meal which we are having early this year makes me thankful. My decorations are very minimal this year but it was good to clean up and to decorate. I love sitting and relaxing in my home when it is really clean and organized.

2. Our son Dan drove across the Cascades on Wednesday to spend a few days and to be here for our Thanksgiving meal. I’m thankful he made it across the pass safely when several cars were spinning out in the snowfall. Our son Josh drove over to see his brother and sister for the evening. I was sitting on the couch enjoying being with our 3 adult children enjoying each other. These times get fewer and farther between with their lives going in different directions.

3. Our daughter Katie is getting to the “oh my gosh I only have this many days before I move stage” and this makes her chatter. It’s been good to take care of lots of last minute stuff with her.

4. I’ve been cooking so much for crowds these days that Thanksgiving preparations seem like a breeze in my head so I’m enjoying the relaxation of this new feeling. My family does not want surprises on Thanksgiving but just want the traditional goodies. This makes for a very predictable and known cooking process…

5. One of the biggest blessings of this last week was planning, preparing, and enjoying our daughter Katie’s bridal shower last Saturday evening. It was so great to see so many old friends of ours and Katie’s. Katie was showered with love and gifts. Prayers on her and Andrew’s behalf were so precious. At the end of our evening the power went out. Thankfully we already had several candles lit and gathered up more to give us more light. My sister Lana walked people to their cars with a flashlight because it was so dark outside with no streetlights.

What is making you thankful this week?

Moroccan Shower and Tablescape

I’m posting my photos from our Moroccan Bridal Shower now and will link these up for Tablescape Thursday later in the week on Susan’s Between Naps on the Porch Blog. I’m traveling back to L.A. from Seattle tomorrow for a funeral on Wednesday and won’t be around the computer much. I’m staying at my condo in Camarillo until Monday the 20th when I fly back to Seattle and finish off my scheduled time here.

My daughter and I decorated our deck gazebo on Sunday for a Bridal shower for her friend Kristen. Katie is in the wedding in August. We decided on this theme because Kristen has enjoyed this culture and has taken Belly Dancing courses. It took Katie and I a couple hours to decorate the gazebo.

Here’s what we started with. The pile of stuff in the top photo are things I’ve accumulated from Goodwill and other thrift stores with this theme in mind. Yards of fabric and window scarfs are inexpensive second hand for the amount of fabric you get. We also used large tablecloths we had on hand that worked in with the colors.

This is the final result. The Bride to be was so pleased and “blown away” at what we created in honor of her.

We could have used a lot more safety pins then we had but ties really came in handy as did the good ole stapler.

I prepared Rack of Lamb with Ina Garten’s recipe from her Barefoot Contessa Parties book. The mustard mixture that coats the racks seasons the lamb so well. I’ll share the recipe later. I also made basmati rice with almonds and raisens. The salad we served was with persian cucumbers and a persian salad dressing.

Because Kristen is gluten intolerant we found a gluten free brownie mix and prepared the brownies and served them with rasberries and a chocolate sauce.

As dessert was served the winds whipped up and the rains came down followed with thunder and lightning. The girls evacuated to the family room for opening presents and some nice hot tea.

Thank you for visiting. I hope to get around bloggyland on Thursday after my travels and the funeral. Blessings!

On Thursday you can see more scapes at Between Naps on the Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Mad Hatter Tea

For Tablescape Thursday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch I wanted to share photos I took of a Mad Hatter Bridal Tea Party I attended last year. The hosts for this party did such an amazing job of decorating and planning this lovely event. It was given in honor of my nephew’s bride to be.

It was strongly requested that we wear hats to the event, after all it was a mad hatter tea…

This is my SIL and me in our hats :0)

For more tables set for viewing please visit Susan here.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Tag Archives: Bridal Shower