Hi, Everyone! I’m really excited to share some details with you today on one of the larger projects I worked on earlier this year: a “Sweet Surprises” Candy Baby Shower for Operation Shower!

With 125 expectant military moms and nearly 300 guests total, this was definitely the largest baby shower I’ve ever worked on! 🍼

The baby shower was held at Universal Studios Hollywood and made possible by Babies R Us, the Operation Shower team, and lots of generous vendors and volunteers. From the months of planning before to the actual day of the event, it TRULY took a village.

Candy Baby Shower Printables

My Sweet as Candy printables are available in our store. They make it so EASY to add pro designer style & personalization to your event. It’s like instant branding for your party! 🙌 Click here to buy this collection.

DOING IT UP RIGHT…

My role was designing the theme and table centerpieces + graphic design and printing. Speaking of the tables – there were 33 of them! And there are a few other cool things to note, too…

1) The Hostess

The event hostess was fashion designer/model/mom Heidi Klum (!), who was incredibly gracious about greeting and interacting with every guest of honor. She visited the tables to chat, posed for pictures, and even held some of the babies and signed a pregnant belly. ;)

Each guest of honor also received TONS of cool stuff – including a crib and a stroller! – from Heidi’s Truly Scrumptious baby and kids line.

I also can’t resist posting this next pic… simply because it’s not exactly often that I have a picture of Heidi Klum speaking behind a poster I designed… and I’ll admit that it kinda makes me happy. 😉

2) The Location

The shower was held in The Globe Theater at Universal Studios, so even stepping outside the venue was pretty neat, with all the movie-set-like decor and music nearby! I especially loved seeing those little Minions around. 😉

3) The Team

There were tons of people from all over that helped pull the event together. It truly felt like Santa’s Workshop on set-up day… except in March and with “elves” that were making centerpieces and chair banners instead of toys.

Thank you to everyone (including Dayna & Jacque) that patiently embellished wire baby carriages with jelly beans, strung a zillion gumballs on bakers twine, sustained “hot glued gummy bear” burns 😆, etc, to bring my crazy candy-embellished centerpiece visions to life! Thanks also to my husband Sonny for going to literally every single Michaels and Target in San Diego county for me to find enough of all the stuff that we needed!

While we’re on the subject of Thank Yous, there are a few very important vendors that I want to recognize too…

As I mentioned earlier, there were lots of vendors that donated products to help make this event extra special, but these are the 4 that I reached out to and worked with personally. I’d like to sincerely thank them again from the bottom of my heart:

1) Wildflower Linen

Wildflower Linen generously provided amazing matte satin table linens in 4 candylicious colors for all 33 lunch tables, the side tables, and the sweets station. The linens instantly brought the room – and our entire candy theme – to life. It would definitely not have looked the same without them!

2) Empty Vase

The gorgeous floral arrangements displayed on 8 of the tables were designed and provided by talented LA-based florist, Empty Vase. I love the vibrant mix of colors and striped medallion vases they used to create delicious, rainbow-esque centerpieces that matched the candy theme perfectly!

3) Candy Galaxy

“Candy” was our theme, and of course with a baby shower this large we were going to need a LOT of it! Thank you to Candy Galaxy for providing all of the candy used throughout the table decor (centerpieces, chair backs, etc) – as well as tons of jelly bellies for the candy ring-making baby shower activity.

Since I used gummy bears as a key element in the paper details, I was especially excited to see their amazing assortment of gummy bear colors and ordered those in 6 different colors! Couldn’t resist the adorable GIANT gummy bear either!

4) Balloon Time

One of my favorite decor details was the giant 36” rainbow confetti balloons from Shop Sweet Lulu (with matching tissue tassels by The Flair Exchange), but these puppies take a LOT of helium to blow up! Thanks so much to Balloon Time for providing all of the helium tanks to make that happen.

ADDITIONAL PICS + MORE TO COME…

There’s so much to say about this shower, but in an effort to keep this post from getting totally overwhelming, I’m going to leave you with a few more of my favorite shots below. I’ll be posting separately on the other details because there are just too many to cram into one post!

I hope you find some great inspiration here for any “sweet” or candy-themed baby shower or birthday party that you might have coming up! And if you’re looking for any of the Candy Baby Shower paper details, this party collection is available in my store. :)

Here’s me with Heidi and the Operation Shower team towards the end of the event. For those of you that don’t know me, I’m the one on the far left. :)

Candy Baby Shower Printables

My Sweet as Candy printables are available in our store. They make it so EASY to add pro designer style & personalization to your event. It’s like instant branding for your party! 🙌 Click here to buy this collection.