My Best Friend's Wedding: Bridal Shower Preparations

Planning a bridal shower for best friend has proved to be easier than I could have imagined.  After pouring over magazine and online inspiration for tablescapes and elegant finger food I decided it would be a whole lot easier to hire someone else to do the work  *big smile*.  Until last week we had almost everything planned but we lost our venue so everything had to be changed.  I called / emailed at least 30 locations in the Raleigh area and had a lot of difficulty finding a location that could fit our party of 15-20.  The group size was too big for some locations and too small for others.  I also had price quotes all the way up to $1000 (eek!  just for the space, no food involved). 

Needless to say, I found the perfect spot!  A small tea room sandwiched in a shopping center that has ample parking for everyone so nobody has to park and walk in heels.  And I can play into the bride's affection for the beautiful Duchess of Cambridge. 

Okay - I'm pretty sure everyone loves her.

So we are going to have a formal afternoon tea and the whole tea room is ours for the entirety of the shower.  The food will be set up in the Victorian style back room - fine china and linens belong to the tea room so there's no need to travel with mom's full set of crystal.  I'm really excited - mostly for some of these:

So I have three weeks to brush up on my ettiquette, (i.e, to add jam then dairy to your scone).  And learn important differences between "high" tea and "low" tea.  I had even thought to honor Princess Catherine that I might don pantyhose for the occasion but decided against it - afterall, I'm a Carolina girl and the thermometer in R's truck read 112* just a couple of nights ago.