Entertaining Ideas
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Bridal Shower Ideas!
I am a maid of honor. woohoo. Seeking fun, creative ideas for bridal shower! Open to them all...games, decor, etc.TIA!
Re: Bridal Shower Ideas!
thI guess I'd start with how much you have for a budget, then think about what sort of tone (a wild couples party or a girly tea party). I'd also consider the couple/bride. Is there something they love? A honeymoon they are taking? I did a Greek shower for someone honeymooning in Greece. My husband and I met working in a papermill and a bm designed invites using the paper we made.
So a little starting point might be helpful.
The best bridal showers I've been to had yummy food and didn't take forever.
Decide if you want to have little snacks out the whole time for people to eat and make it like a cocktail party, or if you want to do a meal ... maybe have it in a restaurant and give people a choice of two or three entrees, or cook the food yourself/have it catered and do a buffet line. Or make it like a tea - finger sandwiches, small hors d'oeuvres, little pastries.
Alcohol isn't required but in many circles it's appreciated ... wine, beer, sangria, champagne. At least offer sodas, water, coffee and tea, and maybe iced tea or punch.
Nobody I know really loves shower games. But IMO if you have to do them, the best ones are the ones that don't interrupt the party. Bridal Bingo can be played while the bride is opening gifts. Or set an egg timer and when it goes off a prize goes to the person whose gift the bride is holding at that moment. I *hate hate hate* when someone interrupts the gift opening to announce that we're going to play a game.
Have a chair out for the bride so she can open gifts so everyone can see. Have one or two people responsible for bringing her the gifts, taking away the opened gifts (be sure to keep the card with it) and getting rid of the wrapping paper. Have someone else who's reliable use a pen and paper to record who gave her each gift (very important for thank you notes). Try to keep it moving ... it's torture when a bride takes for-ev-er to open her gifts.
Will it be a surprise shower? If so then I would bring along a nice change of clothes for the bride (unless she's being asked to dress up for dinner or something as the cover story, which is probably a good idea for you if you're in charge of the cover story - that way she doesn't feel underdressed). I would also bring along a pashmina shawl and/or a cardigan ... I've been to a few showers where the bride being in the chair and bending over/moving her legs around to open her gifts has made her nearly flash people, lol. She can cover up with the cardigan on top, and drape the pashmina across her lap if her skirt is short.
Have you booked the location yet? Keep in mind that you'll need to transport the gifts to the car(s) at the end. My shower was in a church basement and to get to the cars we had to walk down a long hallway and up two flights of stairs, so loading the cars took us nearly two hours. And make sure you have people recruited to help load the cars ... my friend's shower was not only up a steep flight of stairs, but the majority of the bridesmaids bolted after the party so guests had to unexpectedly help out with the gifts.
Are there any other bridesmaids or moms/aunts who expect to be involved? Talk to each of them about their budgets before you start planning something. Don't just plan something and then tell them what they owe, because if they don't give you the money then you're screwed. Make sure to plan something you can all afford, and make sure you have all the cash in hand before making arrangements (or are prepared to fully pay for it yourself). And people may be shy about admitting that they don't have money to spare, so make it clear that they can help in other ways if they want (address invitations, make food, offer their house as the location, etc.).
Depending on the crowd, you may want to have a time frame. If it's going to be a casual party where you don't mind people lingering, then an 'end time' is not necessary but you should still have an idea of what is being done when so things don't drag out.
* Don't let the bride take forever opening gifts. Some guests only enjoy watching the bride open their gift.
* Alcohol isn't for everyone. Make sure there are other options. However, fun cocktails are always nice. I had multiple showers and one brunch shower included mimosas, and another lunch-time-ish shower included spiked cider.
* If you choose to have a theme, go all the way, don't just do a poor job.
* You do NOT have to use the wedding colors for the shower.
* Set a budget. Follow that budget, especially if you're asking for help from others (i.e. the BMs). If someone tells me that my portion is X amount and it ends up being twice that, I'd be annoyed/pissed.
* Create a plan (like PP suggested), of who is going to hand the gifts to the Bride, who is going to take the gifts away, who is going to clean up wrapping paper, who is going to write the gifts down, and who is going to help load the gifts into the car(s).
- One game my MOH played was a game where all the guests had two "paddles". One had a photo of me (with a colored straw taped on the back to hold it up like a paddle) and one with a photo of DH. She then would read things off like "Who will do the laundry?" and guests would hold up who they think would do that task. The paddles were used for another game where DH and I answered questions before the party (i.e. How many kids do you want?) and guests would guess who said which answer. This was a fun game BUT I was not pleased with the photo my MOH chose. I generally don't care about photos of myself but I had just had a blue popsicle and was sticking out my tongue to show my blue tongue. And this photo was being held up by 20 guests.
BFP #1 3/23/12 ~ EDD 11/29/12 ~ M/C 5/20/12 ~ D&E 5/21/12
BFP #2 10/21/12 ~ EDD 7/4/13 ~ Team Pink!
One "game" that was very fun with a shower I did was having someone discretely write down all the comments that the bride made while opening the gifts. Then after the gift opening I let everyone know and had them read aloud explaining that these are the comments that the bride would be making on her wedding night. It suited my crowd just right and there was nothing raunchy about it. It was just good clean fun and funny in that context.
Some of the comments were things like "wow, how does this work" or " this package is huge". LOL