Wedding Shower Ideas

It is said that bridal showers grew out of an early practice where a financially underprivileged family might not have the means to provide a dowry for their daughter or when a father decided not to give his daughter a dowry because he did not approve of his daughter’s choice for a husband.

In those instances, friends of the bride would have a get together and bring gifts to the bride in lieu of a dowry.

Today’s wedding shower is usually hosted by the bridal party or a close female relative of the bride. Wedding shower ideas are endless but one idea that I would like to share with you is what happened at my bridal shower.

My maid-of-honor invited my fiancée and me to her house for dinner one Sunday afternoon and asked me to pick up a cake that she ordered at a particular restaurant. Unbeknownst to me, all the guests were seated in the front room of the restaurant and when I walked to the counter to get the desert, all of the guests jumped up and yelled, “Surprise.” Wow, I was shocked!!!

The invitation to the wedding shower is important because it sets the tone of the shower and lets the guests know the date, time, place, who the host is, how to RSVP.

If the wedding shower is a surprise, state the time that the bride will be arriving so that the guests will not be late and spoil the surprise. Include the stores that the bride is registered and if there is a gift theme (cookware, lingerie, honeymoon gift cards at the couples travel agency and etc.)

A popular wedding shower idea is for the host to choose a few games for the guests to play as entertainment at the shower. A fun game to play is to ask questions about the bride and groom and see which guest answers the most questions correctly.

Gift bingo is always a fun and easy game to play. The host distributes a piece of paper divided into twenty squares with a free square in the center to each participant. Ask the guests to write down one gift that they think the bride might receive in each box. Whoever, gets all the squares filled first wins. (Remember to bring pens and pencils.)

A purse scavenger hunt is another fun game to play. Divide the guests into groups and then ask each group to produce certain items, such as a lighted key ring, a calculator, picture of the bride and groom and so on.

You can assign a point system for each item in accordance to the likelihood of someone actually having the item or have each item the same value. The group with the most points wins. This game is a great ice breaker for the guests. The host can give out small gifts such as, pads, pencils, pens or candy to the winners of the games.

Prior to the shower the host should make a list of items that she will need to help the bride while she is opening her gifts. Tape, a scissor, and plastic bags for the discarded wrapping paper are a must.

Don’t forget that the bride will want to write a personal thank you to her guest for sharing in her shower and for the gift that they brought. So, the host can assign someone to make a list of the gifts that the bride opened with the name of the person who purchased it for her.

Most people enjoy looking at pictures, so a nice idea is to bring pictures of the couple as they were growing up and as a couple. The pictures can be in albums or in frames.