Wedding Shower Wednesday: Project Wishing Well

Dear Em,
Have you ever heard of a Wishing Well? Of course you have, but I'm not talking about the kind you throw pennies into. I'm talking about the kind you find at a wedding shower. I had not heard of one until my best friend's wedding shower. I've been a maid of honor twice in my life, & unfortunately for both brides both times were before my wedding. I had no idea what I was doing.

So, years ago when my best friend's mom said "of course we'll have a wishing well at the shower," I was all like "what is a wishing well?" Her mom was all like, "you write the words wishing well on the shower invitations & people will bring an extra small gift to put in it." Huh? I think we used a laundry basket (supplied by my best friend's mom because I had mostly forgotten about it) & streamers to decorate the "wishing well," & it looked like a cross between a mummy & a large roll of toilet paper (sorry, Jayme, the one you made for my shower was beautiful).

So, now that I'm a little bit older & wiser, I've got this wishing well thing down. A bridal shower wishing well is a way of wishing the bride & new husband the best for their future as a married couple by supplying them with all the little things that are helpful to have in a home. The bridal shower wishing well represents a long- held tradition, but I've found that many women my age don't know what one is.

When we decided to have one for Erin's shower, I knew some people would be confused by merely including the words "wishing well" on the invitations. So, I again searched the web for ideas of how to announce the wishing well in the shower invites. There are a lot of cute ways to announce a wishing well. I took a little bit from a few different sites & then added my own touch. We printed these out to be half the size of the original invite (4 per 8x10 page) & included them in the invitations.

We will have a Wishing Well

For the very special bride.

A small, unwrapped household item

Is what you should drop inside.

It can be a dishcloth for the kitchen,

Cleanser for the sink,

Perhaps soap for the dishes,

Whatever you may think.

They will need items for the bath,

Perhaps some light bulbs too,

Potholders, tissues, soap,

The choice is up to you.

We would also like to ask you

For your favorite recipe.

It’s something Erin & Brian will treasure

For a lifetime of cooking, you’ll see.

The gifts will come in handy

For both the Bride & Groom,

And their cupboards will be stocked

In each & every room.

Now that the wishing well was announced, it needed to be made. We looked at the gifts they had registered for & found a trash can listed. Perfect for a well! It's like they say, one person's, uh,  trash can is another person's, uh, wishing well (or something like that).

We had ideas to wrap the trash can in white butcher paper, paint it, & glue shells & starfish all over it. In the end, I went with something a little more simple...tissue paper. I just started taping & layering it around the trash can & realized it looked simple & elegant & not like a trash can (plus, I got a TON of white tissue paper from Job Lot for wicked cheap)

I used the same scrap booking paper that I made the sand dollars for the shower invitations to make the bride & groom's first initials. I bought some starfish from A.C. Moore & lined the top with them to give it more of a well look.

Simple, elegant, & relatively easy. I was proud of my wishing well. In the end, I realized it probably doesn't matter if the well looks like a cross between a mummy & a large roll of toilet paper if you have amazing friends & family to fill it to the brim.

Want to know what we put in the wishing well? Ketchup. Erin loves ketchup. I've never seen a person put it on so many different foods. She should be covered for the next few months. We gave her three economy sized containers.

Come back next week & we'll talk about how baby goes to bride.

I love you so,

Mommy