Our Drive By Baby Shower

Thanks to my parents and one of my best friends, this past weekend we had the sweetest little drive by baby shower to celebrate God’s little gift to us with a small group of our local friends and family. John Robert wiggled and wiggled from all the love (and donuts!) We found out we were pregnant at the beginning of March, but we hadn’t told anyone until the week of Layne’s birthday after we were all already in lockdown due to COVID. Since then, with trying to be super careful due to me having a high risk pregnancy, we haven’t gotten to see our friends (and walk through this rainbow pregnancy with them) since it pretty much began. It made our hearts so happy to get to finally see, catch up, and celebrate with some of our friends after 6 months — even if it was from a distance!

If anything, this past weekend taught me this: Even if we are unable to gather in the ways that we did before due to circumstances like COVID, I don’t think we should let it take away celebrating life’s precious moments. There’s an indescribable joy that comes from people coming together and loving on one another. Drive by celebrations weren’t even heard of prior to 6 months ago, but I think they’ll now be here to stay and serve as a social distancing / safe alternative to traditional gatherings. It just goes to show that there are still ways to celebrate life’s precious moments with those you hold dear. If you’re looking to host a drive by baby shower for yourself or a loved one in the near future, I hope our experience will serve as a resource for you while you’re planning to help you make it super special.

Drive By Baby Shower Details

Invitations & Stationery

For our baby shower, we sent out invitations that we customized on Zazzle. One of my favorite things about places like Zazzle is that you can coordinate your stationery, signage, or other decor by shopping artists’ collections. We were able to get favor tags and a banner that matched our invitations, and it made everything coordinate and look super cute.

Another great option for invitations is to send out an E-vite so you can have a better idea of who is coming and can send updates to your guest list in the event that weather changes your original plans.

Decor & Set-up

In regards to our set up, we kept it pretty simple. We had a table for treats and favors, a table for gifts, and our bench from our front porch behind them under a couple of umbrellas so that Rob and I could sit (kind of) in the shade between guests driving by. Between the umbrellas, we had a cute banner that we had made on Zazzle. Behind that, I dressed up our garage with a massive balloon garland — because I am every bit of extra when it comes to celebrations. You can get the step by step tutorial for that garland, HERE.

READ ALSO: DIY Balloon Garland Tutorial (Updated)

Our tables were just plastic fold out tables dressed with linens from Table Cloth Factory. As a former wedding planner, I always prefer renting linens — but I LOVE using Table Cloth Factory for smaller events where I just need a couple linens. Their linens are great quality and super inexpensive. I always keep them on hand for times such as these!

Precautions & Social Distancing

With COVID concerns, we set up at the end of our driveway. Since drive by celebrations are such a new thing, everyone was a little different when they came by. (Which was totally okay!) Some people just drove by, and some people parked and got out to chat for a few minutes from a distance. It really was the perfect way for everyone to stay as long as they felt comfortable with.

My best friend Linda took gifts from people (if they brought them and didn’t have them shipped beforehand) and placed them on the gift table. Then my mom would place a sampling of treats in the treat boxes using several sets of clean tongs, seal it, and hand them to our guests before they left so we didn’t have the parade of people touching or standing over the food. It was like treat take-out!

After the shower was over, we went inside and had lunch as a family and opened gifts. While we wished we could have opened gifts with everyone present, opening them together that afternoon still made it feel like we had a ‘normal’ baby shower experience. Since we couldn’t thank our sweet friends as we opened them, I ordered cute thank you notes to send out thank you notes in the upcoming week or two.

Food & Favors

With it being a drive by baby shower, we decided to keep it simple and offer a ‘treat take-out’ box for people who came by. We ordered kraft treat boxes and tied little favor tags on them, and my mom handed them to guests with a sampling of treats inside along with mini water bottles as they would leave.

We had (way too many) donuts from Rob and I’s favorite local donut shop as well as a couple trays of scones and pastries we ordered from our local Publix bakery to give away to our friends who stopped by. In lieu of a traditional baby shower cake, we continued the donut theme and had the donut shop make us a tiered donut cake with John’s name on it that we enjoyed after opening gifts together that afternoon.

 

Photos below from Linda Threadgill Photography

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I hope you enjoyed this look at our drive by baby shower that we had last weekend! It was the sweetest little shower to celebrate God’s little gift to us — and John Robert wiggled and wiggled from all the love (and donuts!) If you’re looking to host a drive by baby shower for yourself or a loved one in the near future, I hope our experience can serve as a resource for you while you’re planning. Will you be hosting a drive by celebration coming up? Do you have any more questions about how it worked? Let me know in the comments below!