Bloggy Bridal Shower: The Recap

You guys, I don't even know what to say about the amazing bloggy bridal shower that you all created for me yesterday. Seriously. I am so overwhelmed.

First of all, I have to give huge thanks to Alice, Pseudostoops, and Swistle for organizing all this. You guys are the best. When I let Swistle take over my blog for a day, I had an inkling that it might be something wedding-related, but I never would have expected this.

For one thing, the recipe box! First of all, the box itself was beautiful. As in, I didn't even know it was possible for a recipe box to BE that beautiful, and I now need everything else in my life to be designed to match:


Second of all, the sheer number of recipes INSIDE the box was totally beyond belief:



And there were so many greeting cards with the sweetest personal messages from a lot of you:


Notice how many of those cards are purple. And that two people got me the same card--how cute is that? Also, I was impressed at how many of the recipe cards were purple. Clearly, you guys know me well.

And then, of course, there was the small matter of the shower itself--hosted by Alice, used as a vehicle to present me all this stuff and get some of my real-life friends together for an actual little shower. Very cleverly disguised as just a regular dinner with Alice, and then a cluster of friends gathered in the kitchen, poised to yell, "Surprise!" when we walked in. There was a veil attached to a purple tiara. And cupcakes with our names on them. And champagne with cassis liqueur (purple!) for a toast. And great music and great company and the beautiful cards and gift from all of you. And two cute cats.

Of course, I wasn't prepared with my camera, but luckily Alice took care of that. You can see the pictures over here.

And then we got home, and I went online only to discover a whole plethora of posts from around the blogosphere, sending Torsten and me happy wishes for our wedding. Seriously, the icing on the incredibly touching cake. You guys are the best. I never would have thought when I started a blog that it would ever lead to something like this, so many people, most of whom I've never met, conspiring to put together such a lovely and meaningful surprise for us. I know I've said this before, but it absolutely bears repeating: You guys are the best EVER. Thank you so much.