A New York City Bridal Tea

Greg and I decided to get married almost two years ago, but we didn’t formally announce our engagement until February of this year. While it was fun planning the wedding before the announcement, these last few months have been even more special now that everyone knows!

The wedding is constantly a topic of conversation, from friends to family to coworkers. And every time someone asks me about our plans, I get more and more excited. There’s just something so thrilling about sharing our joy with everyone we love, and feeling the anticipation build as the big day approaches. An engagement is such a special time, and I’m glad we’re now fully experiencing it!

To further celebrate this milestone, my mom hosted a beautiful bridal shower for me in the Orangery at The Whitby Hotel in Midtown. And, because she knows me so well, the event was an afternoon tea – one of my favorite things to do in New York City!

Greg’s sister, Katherine, and his mother, Donna, were kind enough to travel from Washington, DC and Florida (respectively) for the occasion.

And Greg was kind enough to travel from… uptown… to stop by and say “hi!”

I was also joined by my Aunt Colleen, Aunt Mary, and cousin Marisa, who all took the train down from Connecticut to celebrate with me.

And Kate flew up from Florida, too!

My New York City friends had less of a journey, but their presence was equally special, since the afternoon wouldn’t have been complete without them there. Thank you Nicole and Chelsea for coming!

And thank you Jess, Steph and Lauren as well!

Wondering how guests knew where to sit? Well, my clever mom came up with these adorable place cards… or, more accurately … place succulents in a teacup!

I had the BEST time with these incredible women, talking and laughing the afternoon away.

In fact, sips of tea were the only things that interrupted our conversation!

After the tea was served, our savories and sweets followed.

We dined on egg salad; cucumber and cream cheese; smoked salmon with lemon creme fraîche; and ham and wholegrain mustard sandwiches.

We also ate scones slathered with clotted cream and preserves.

And, of course, we had plenty of dessert! We were served lemon and poppyseed chiffon cakes, strawberry tarts, and chocolate and caramel mille-feuilles.

But the star of the show was the carrot cake roll with cream cheese frosting. It was the best carrot cake I’ve ever had!

After we ate, we played a few games. For the first, each guest wrote down on a card a memory she shared with me (a happy memory, of course!). I read each card out loud, then proceeded to guess who wrote it.

It was fun re-living the memories, and sharing some fun details of each moment with the other ladies.

Then my mom gave each guest a list of countries and had her guess which ones I’ve visited, which ones Greg’s visited, and which ones we’ve both visited.

Aunt Mary and Jess both tied for first place! And there was one country everyone got right: both Greg and I have visited France!