I'm working from a coworker's house today (Friday - I'm posting ahead because I'm out of town again this weekend), and I think we've spent as much time party-planning as we've spent working. She has the motherlode of Martha Stewart Weddings magazines, and we've been going back and forth between actual work and showing each other fun ideas for a shower we're throwing in a few months.

My current favorite party-planning site is Hostess {with the mostess} - most of the parties on the blog are SERIOUSLY over-the-top, but so much fun to look at and get ideas from. They've got party ideas for pretty much any type of party you could ever want to throw, and for a lot of them there are ways you could take inspiration and color schemes and tone them down from the site... maybe not spend several thousand dollars per party like the original hosts probably do. They also have great DIY ideas like this adorable cake stand, which I'm totally stealing.

Don't you love, though, what a completely different world Martha Stewart and her writers live in? I'm reading through the Weddings magazine and, in a section on shower invitations (shower invitations - not even wedding invitations, but shower invitations), they say, "The options right now are truly endless - from letterpress to couture - and suit all budgets." Really? The options start at letterpress ($$$$) and range all the way to couture ($$$$$), and that suits ALL budgets? Can I be invited to your world, pretty please? Can I even just be invited to your world as a commissioned stationery salesperson? Because I'd be raking it in.