If you’ve ever planned a bridal shower- which you may know as a pamper party, a bridal tea, a wedding shower, a kitchen tea or a hen party- you will know that its no small endeavour!
Once you’ve covered the guest list, important family or cultural traditions, decided whether to have a couples shower, a cocktail party or a tea party and chosen the food, you’ll probably be hoping that that’s all there is to it… But if you’re up for it, here are a few suggestions for how you can make your bride-to-be’s shower a simply unforgettable affair!
What about asking each guest to bring a wine glass, a champagne glass, or a teacup and saucer, with which the bride can build up a unique and quirky collection of crockery!
Games for your guests are always a good idea! Watching the bride open her gifts can be dreadfully dull, and you can only “ooh” and “aah” so many times… Playing games- whether you give prizes or not- can help your guests get to know each other and the bride a little better! There are ample games for bridal showers to be found on the world wide web- from scavenger hunts and memory games to toilet paper wedding dress competitions and not being allowed to say certain words. My personal favourite game list is right here!
To do something different, instead of formal games, why not have cupcakes for your guests to decorate! You can have the icing and decorations matched to your bride-to-be’s colour scheme and theme, and each guest can then literally have their cakes AND eat them! Its something different, its fun, you won’t need to buy party favours or cake, and who doesn’t love cupcakes!
If you are planning to decorate your venue, there are endless options from flowers and balloons to paper streamers and banners! It could cost you a fortune, unless you have the time and help to go the DIY route… but if your venue is pretty already, you really need not worry about decor.
You could ask your guests to wrap their gifts with a length of ribbon in a particular colour, which the bride can then ask her florist to incorporate into her wedding bouquet! You could also make the ribbons into a “bouquet” on their own, and the bride can then use it at the wedding rehearsal, or toss this “bouquet” at the wedding reception instead of her own- often very expensive- wedding bouquet.
What about a guest book? In it, your guests can write wishes for happiness and perhaps make a note of what their gift is, enabling the guest of honour to remember who gave her what. Or the hostess could arrange with someone to keep a list of which gift was from which guest as they are opened.
But, before you consider any kind of decor or entertainment for your bride-to-be’s shower, ask her what she would like. Its a celebration of her upcoming marriage, and you would like it to be memorable! If she has mentioned many times how much she’d like to have a “girls night out” at a stylish club, she may not enjoy a champagne breakfast quite as much… Speak to your bride-to-be, and use her input to start your planning.
Have fun and take lots of photos!
And if you keep your eyes open though, you can find beautiful “substitutes” in a lot of jewellery stores.
