Gender Neutral Baby Shower: Celebrating the Pinks and the Blues

When my daughter was pregnant with her second child, she and her husband decided not to find out the gender of the baby before it was born. I will admit, at first I was a little disappointed as I wanted to begin my baby shopping sprees immediately. And as you probably know, there aren’t a lot of cute neutral baby items out there. But she reminded me that I didn’t know the gender of either of my children before they were born so their nurseries were green and yellow and it all turned out just fine.

When it came time to plan a baby shower, I searched Pinterest for gender neutral ideas. There aren’t a ton of ideas out there, but I ran across one idea of including both the pink and the blue color schemes in the shower (rather than yellow or green) and so that’s what we went with. My youngest daughter Lyndsay helped with the planning and set up (while she was also pregnant with her (first).

Due to Covid, we decided to plan an outdoor event at my home. We decided to keep the numbers relatively low (under 20) and crossed our fingers for good weather. The shower was in September which is normally a pretty month in the mountains of North Carolina. I found a large tent on Amazon that I thought would be great to keep the sun off of everyone (more on that later!)

This shower came together with some things we already had, some new items some thrifted items and some DIY. Here’s a rundown of some of the things we did and made to pull it all together.

We pulled the blue and white chinoiserie vases and other items from our stash of Lauren’s wedding decor to use as flower vases. A DIY tip for saving money is go through your home and collect vases and vessels that can be used as vases, then grab bouquets of flowers in the colors you are using from your local grocery store. If you ask the floral department at the grocery store in advance, they can order you almost any flower you need.

I found 6-8 gold flower pots at thrift store for less than $1 each and added grocery store flowers in pinks and whites.

I ordered pink and blue plastic plates to mix and match and added them to gold chargers we already had. I ordered the plates here.

We used the glasses we had on hand from a previous shower that we bought at Dollar Tree. They look so pretty and they don’t look like we only paid $1 each You can order items in bulk from Dollar Tree! Did you know that? I don’t see the glasses we have online, but they are usually in the stores. Here is a link to other wine glasses and stem glasses they have.

I found some pretty shaped candle sticks at the thrift store for $2 each and spray painted them with white chalk paint. We added blue hydrangea blooms pulled off of the stem to the tops of them.

I ordered pink and blue napkins here and folded them in the form of a flower. I will share a video to show you how easy it is to do that yourself!

Blue and Pink Gauze table runners were used on down the center of the table to add a little pink and blue to the center pieces.

For favors, we made fresh flower bouquets. I found these floral papers online and just gathered small bouquets of flowers in them and tied them with a ribbon. We then gathered them all in a large floral planter. It made a pretty display at the shower.

See the Shop the Shower link at the bottom of the post for all of the links to shower items we purchased.

In the tent we hung pink and blue umbrellas for a splash of color and draped pink and blue curtain sheers on the poles. It was really cute while it lasted. A day that didn’t seem that windy at all, ended up with our newly decorated and set up baby shower tent blown over on its side!

Yep…in one quick second there it all went! I was so sad! 🙁 And there was no saving the brand new tent…the poles were either broken or bent beyond repair. I will admit it took me a moment to recover, but thanks to Lyndsay and my husband it got cleaned up and the umbrellas got scattered around the tables and trees. All of this happened within an hour of when guests were to arrive! It was a lesson in not getting caught up in the things that don’t matter. What mattered was spending time with family and friends.

For the menu, we made a variety of finger foods including mini quiche, “rose” beef bites, cucumber sandwiches, chocolate covered strawberries, ham and peach jam tea biscuits, and roasted fingerling potatoes. We had cupcakes and mini cakes from Walmart (they were pretty darn cute for grocery store cakes) and flavored waters and lemonades for beverages.

And a special note to those who think that everything on blogs and social media look so perfect. They never are! We planned this shower and had everything ready to go with all of the decor set in the tent. And then…one hour before the shower, the wind blew the tent completely over. And it wasn’t a small tent! It took the tent, all of the decor attached to it like the umbrellas and sheers, the wooden entry boards and the balloon arch. All of it. I just stood there with my mouth open and a few tears.

But my daughter and husband quickly sprung into action and cleaned up the tent, scattered the umbrellas around the trees and table fronts, reset the boards and the balloon arch (strongly strapped to a nearby tree this time).

So the lesson is…sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes they completely fall apart. But give yourself a minute to breathe and maybe freak out just a tad, then move on. Our friends and family never realized that there was ever a tent there and we all enjoyed being together and celebrating the mother and sweet baby to be!