Our engagement party was back in early early February, but I'm juuuust now getting my life together enough to post.
February has been a MONTH of wedding planning madness! We've booked our venue, a band, photographer, videographer, AND we sent out our save the dates! Plus like, living regular life and working. Ya know? Oh and blogging.
I'm a little tired. But I'm also having fun.
To be honest, I think this whole wedding thing didn't feel as exciting until we had our engagement party. Don't get me wrong, I was "excited." But like having our friends and family over to actually celebrate the engagement really made it all feel real.
I wanted to put together this little post for my own memories, but also hopefully to serve as inspo for any couples looking to throw their own engagement party at home! We looked into venues and restaurants and LORD were they all expensive. We couldn't stomach the idea of spending $1K on an engagement party, so went the good ol' come over to our place route.
Let's get into the deets.
Decor
Our apartment is a typical San Francisco apartment - small. Well..ish. We actually have a pretty big apartment for being San Francisco. But it's still San Francisco.
You get my point.
We couldn't go totally crazy with decor, but I definitely wanted to spruce up our little space. I snagged amazing rosé balloons from this ETSY shop. I also ordered a custom banner with our names on it and this amazing giant ring balloon. Can you tell I love ETSY?
Food & drink
Food and drink will always be a conversation for us because we are a multicultural couple. KB is Russian Jewish so food is basically life. I have such deep respect for his culture and always want to make sure we're including Russian food where we can, but also want to have easy approachable American food that I grew up with.
We ordered brunch items from Cinderella Bakery here in San Francisco. They were so incredibly helpful in crafting the perfect combo of American and Russian brunch foods. We had your standard eggs, bacon, and sausage - but also had plenty of stuffed pastries and pelmeni (my favorite Russian dish of all time).
For drinks, one of my maids of honor suited up a mimosa bar with cute little carafes. The other maid of honor saved the day with the ice bucket. Like seriously fully team effort on the champagne campaign and I think it really came together.
Personal touches
I love a good personal touch. I had the idea to do a gallery wall from our proposal + family photos in our living room just in time for the party. It turned out to be the perfect backdrop! I framed a shot of the proposal along with some prints from Paris and a Hawaii trip we took as a family. We honestly just need a family photo with his parents up there to complete the whole dang thing.
Our engagement party was so special and fun. The maids of honors hosted some little games, people ate and drank and laughed. It was just awesome. It felt like a little mini preview of our wedding! It actually made me so much more excited for the big day.
Sometimes I get freaked out not by the prospect of marriage - but just by how overwhelming a giant party can be. That's a whole lot of people and a whole lot of pressure. Ya know? It was so comforting to just party it up with the closest of friends and family and like get into the spirit.
The wedding spirit, y'all!
All photos shot by the amazing Jenn Justice Photography.