'WILL YOU BE MY BRIDESMAID?' GIFT IDEA

Hi lovelies! You have no idea how excited I've been to share this post with you all as it's going to be the first of many Engagement/ Wedding posts on my blog! If you follow me on any social media you'll be aware that my boyfriend (now Fiancé!) Darren and I recently got engaged! I've been absolutely dying to start writing up some posts on the engagement party (which will follow this post shortly!) and early wedding preparations, but I've had to keep it all quiet until after the party in case any of my friends and family had a peek beforehand! One thing I've had to keep extra quiet was my plans for asking my Bridesmaids to be in the wedding. I decided that though we've not yet set a date, I wanted to ask my girls early so they'd know in plenty of time and because all of these girls are such a huge part of my life, I wanted them to each have a special moment at our Engagement party too.

So, obviously I decided to ask my girls at our Engagement party as I knew I'd have all (but one, unfortunately as she was unable to make it!) the girls together in one place and it just seemed like an appropriate time to ask. I'm going to have six girls as my Bridesmaids, three of which are my cousins, two are my best friends from school and of course, my Maid of Honour is my twin sister! I wanted to ask them in a creative way and at the same time, give them each something to show how much I appreciate them. I'd seen so many ideas of ways to ask your girls on Pinterest, so I did take inspiration from that, but I also wanted to include bits and pieces that were actually useful for all the girls, as well as being cute things that made the bags look super pretty!

First up, I bought six matching gift bags and six cards, all from John Lewis. I think you can buy actual Bridesmaid asking cards, but I just really loved these ones and they were totally blank inside, so there was plenty of room to write my own message. Inside each card, I wrote the same message 'I don't know when, I don't know where, but I know I want you there! Will you help me tie the knot and be my Bridesmaid?', I then attached a silver bow necklace to each card, I found these on etsy - I actually can't find the exact seller now, but if you type in silver bow necklace into amazon, etsy or eBay, there'll be tons of options similar to this one. I thought this was really cute as it tied in (figuratively and literally!) with the 'tie the knot' message. I then wrote each girl their own personal message on the other side of the card about how much they mean to me and why I'd love them to be in our wedding. I sort of do know when are where now, but it wasn't set in stone when I gave these out, so I wanted the note to be something that didn't give too much away so I thought this worked perfectly.

To fill each bag, I chose an assortment of things that both looked pretty and should be really useful. All but one of my maids are 18 and over, so for the older girls (except one who doesn't drink wine!) I bought a little bottle of Moscato Sparkling Rose, then for the other two, so it matched, I bought these cute mini bottles of Fentiman's Pink Rose Lemonade from Waitrose. Again, for the older girls, I bought each of them Pink Champagne Truffles from John Lewis (not vegan, but none of my girls are and I don't like to force my views on others!!) and for my youngest lady, some cute pink foil wrapped heart chocolates from The Cocoabean Company, also from John Lewis. I'm pretty sure you're not going to get sloshed on Champagne Truffles, but I thought plain old chocolate would probably be her preference anyway!

You could absolutely leave each gift bag at that with the drink, chocolates and necklace, but I have an absolute obsession with gift giving and wanted to get a few more bits to make the bags extra special and slightly more personal to each girl. So, I picked up a set of seven miniature perfumes from Next, I thought this was fab as each perfume had it's own cute little box too, so it just made it look that bit prettier! I then tested each one (sorry if you're reading this girls, your perfume is missing one spray!) and decided which perfume would best suit which of the girls. I then also got two packs of three mini notebooks from Home Bargains and put a colour and design to suit each girl into their bags.

Finally, I found these cute mini manicure sets in a local discount shop and I thought they were perfect, as they fitted my colour scheme (these aren't necessarily our Wedding colours, but they matched the Engagement party theme!) and the flamingos tied in with the ones on their cards. For my youngest bridesmaid, I got a cute little pink rose pocket mirror, as she's only 11 at the moment and I wasn't sure her parents would be pleased with me giving her a set of tweezers - I tried to do my own brows at that age and the result wasn't pretty! Finally, I picked up six tiny nail polishes from Superdrug, this was kind of to show the possible direction I'm thinking of going in with wedding colours, but also just because I thought it completed the gift bag quite nicely.

So that's it! That's how I asked my girls to be my Maids! I'd love to know your thoughts on this and if you've done anything similar, or any wedding themed blog posts, I'd love for you to leave a link in the comments!

Let me know if you're excited for more wedding themed posts in the future, I can't wait to write some!