Need some baby shower help!

 My best friend and my mother are having a small shower for me in a couple weeks. I know about it and Im helping somewhat. We are making homemade lasagna, one tray will be regular one for WLS friends and family. I have a few. And some baked ziti.  We are also doing salad. My question is do you think we should just do all the little sides like cucumber, bacon bites, croutons on the side? I say yes.

Also we have bags for goodies but havent decided what to put in them. Any ideas?? Its really an intimate party. We invited people that are either close family or are important to me. Plus with us moving it may be the only chance to see some people before we leave!!

Any ideas? would be super appericated.

How many people will be attending the shower?  That would make a difference in how I answer your salad question.  If you have more than 10-12 people coming, I would make a salad with everything already in it to help move the serving line a long a little smoother.  You don't want people standing in line for a long time.  Another thing you could do is put the salads at their seats already with small containers of dressing, croutons, etc at each table for them to add their own toppings.  If you really want to have them put together their own salads, you could have a salad station, a pasta station, dessert station, drink station etc spread throughout the room to help with the flow of people getting their food.

As far as goodies, they have little mesh bags at craft stores that you could purchase to put them in.  They come in all kinds of colors so you could go with the blue or pink, or even fall colors depending on how you are decoration for the shower.

Good luck with the shower and have fun! Don't work too hard on it.

Well I would say just add all the veggies into the salad (anyone can pick put the veggies that they don't like) and have things like the bacon bits and croutons on the side - then the dressings separate as well. You can also do the salad arranged - put the lettuce in a big bowl then have a platter with the other veggies in little piles, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, carrots etc.

humm the goodie bags - you can make cookies, get those "party almonds" that have the candy coatings on them - I'd go to Michaels or AC Moore and walk around - something will spark your interest!

Happy planning!

Liz

I know when we do special dinners at church we have a seperate station for each course.  One table for drinks, one for the food, one for the salad and one for the desserts.   If room permits this, then I say go with Liz and have the pick out what they don't like.  Or you could limit your toppings and put a salad at each setting and the toppings on the table. 
As far as the goody bags, since it is a baby showers, you could baby themed candy (Baby Ruth, Mr. Goodbar, Hershey Kisses, etc.).  I went to a shower and they played a game where they used different candy bars to represent different parts of the pregnancy.  You could give some kind of bath soaps or lotions or even manicure stuff.

I agree with other posters that unless the shower is *really* small to add the veggies into the salad and then have extra mix ins like croutons, dressings, etc separate. Or you can do if you have the space, time, energy, etc a salad bar/buffet but that takes longer to set up and serve as well.

For gifts you can maybe do something personalized....like the mesh candy bag with the candies almonds/treats and add a personalized note on a ribbon as a thank you from you and baby?