When you’re the friend or sister of the bride, her happiness is also your happiness. What better way to express this but to throw her the perfect bridal shower to bid her singledom adieu? Bridal showers are traditionally celebrated by the bride with her female friends and family, allowing them to have one occasion to be together before she sets off in the marriage boat. These days, though, some bridal showers also include male friends and family. It all depends on what the bride wants. Remember: It’s her day before the Big Day, so make it special!

Planning the Shower

Bridal showers are typically held two to three weeks before the wedding day, and the shower itself is funded by the bridesmaids or the bride’s friends, so best to get the funding down pat—collect the funding a week before the actual shower preparations.

Keep the bride updated every step of the way, unless the bridal shower is a surprise. Consult her on who to invite, where it will be held, food and shower themes. Except for a few surprises you may have up your sleeve, make sure that you get everything the way she wants it, without having to work for it, of course. As soon as all these details are settled, do as much as you can in advance, such as making reservations and choosing invitation designs.

 
 

Fun Bridal Shower Themes

Bridal showers typically have a theme that extends not only to the decorations, but to the invitations and the suggested gift items as well. Don’t forget to clearly state the shower theme in your invitations for your guests! Here are some bridal shower theme suggestions:

Guest in lingerie
• Romantic Theme. Since you are celebrating the bride’s impending nuptials, why not make the shower all about love? Use the bride’s color motif for her wedding, set against a white or cream background. Cover the tables with white linen, with napkins in the wedding’s color motif. Have cream and red roses as your tables’ centerpiece. You can ask your guests to bring any gifts that spells romance in the air—lingerie, scented oils and candles, perfume—anything to make your bride feel beautiful and romantic on her big day! Hand out little romantic trinkets to your guests as a party favor.
• Spa Theme. Any bride knows that planning a wedding can be stressful, so why not give her much-needed time for relaxation? Reserve a big spa room in your favorite spa house. Most spas have bridal shower promos, so be sure to check with them. If not, make a group reservation and go all out on everything the spa offers—massages, pedicures, manicures. Have an easy and relaxed time, and you can go to the bride’s favorite cafe afterwards to top the shower off. Hand out mini mani/pedi sets to your guests as party favors.
  If renting out a spa room is too costly, you can have your spa right at your house! Hire a manicurist, pedicurist and masseuse, depending on the expected number of guests. Have lots of white towels ready, as well as other supplies for the complete spa experience.
• Room for Everything Theme. After the wedding, the bride may find herself dealing with ten sets of cutlery and dishes and only two sets of towels in the bathroom. Unless they have a bridal registry, guests have a tendency to give too many of one household item, too little of another. Here’s one way to make sure the bride gets all the household items she needs as she settles in her new house.
  Each guest is assigned a room (be sure to indicate in in their invitations!). They will then bring items for each room. For example, a guest assigned to the living room can bring a vase as a gift, while a guest assigned to the bathroom can bring towel sets. You can decorate the party space like any household room such as a bedroom or a bathroom, and you can put household items such as cutlery, soap dishes (and soaps), as a centerpiece on your tables, accented with flowers.

Essential oil
• Honeymoon Shower. Have a fun and naughty shower centering around the bride’s honeymoon. Ask the guests to bring gifts that the couple can use for the honeymoon, such as lingerie, essential oils and other things that will make the honeymoon more enjoyable. You can also base the decorations on the bride’s honeymoon destination—a beach motif if she’s going to Hawaii, or something sweet and French-inspired if she’s going to Paris.
• Memories Shower. If you have something a little less racy in mind (after all, family members may be coming!) you can arrange a memories shower. Ask your guests to bring memorabilia of the bride as well as their gifts. Organize a little storytelling session where guests can share their memories of the bride, from the time she was little, from college, and so on. Organize a little slide show presentation at the end of the shower showing baby pictures and such to cap off the event.

Shower Games

No party is fun without its share of games and activities. Here are some things you can do at the bridal shower:

Tissue paper dress
• Tissue Paper Wedding Dress. This may be one of the most popular bridal shower games. Divide the guests into groups of three, and have them assign a “bride”. Using tissue paper, have them design a “wedding gown” and reward the best-made, funniest, etc. Let the real bride be the judge!
• How Well Do You Know the Groom? List questions for the bride to answer on how well she knows the man she is about to marry. Be sure to ask the groom the correct answers before the shower! Ask basic questions such as his favorite color, where he went to school, first date, etc. Reward the bride for her efforts.
• How Well Do You Know the Bride? Ask the bride to sit at one side of the room with all the guests on the other. Ask questions on how much they know the bride, such as favorite food, first date, etc. Guests who answer correctly take a step closer to the bride. First one who gets to the bride wins!
• Recipe for Happiness. Take the bridal shower as an opportunity for the girls in the bride’s circle to share secrets for what makes a happy marriage. Ask the guests to write their own “recipes” and put them in a box. The bride will then draw a “recipe” at random and read it aloud, where everyone can discuss the recipe as a group.
• Honeymoon Charades. Divide the guests into two groups. Each will have to act out honeymoon locations or the things the couple might need on their honeymoon such as condoms, room keys or flip-flops. The group who has the most correct guesses wins.
• Bridal Bingo. Watching the bride open her gifts can get pretty boring, so to add in a kick of excitement, arrange a bridal bingo! Hand out slips of paper and pens to your guests and ask them to list three things the bride is probably going to get. First one to get all three listed items correctly has to yell “Bingo!” and she wins a prize.

Eating at the Shower

The type of food you’ll be serving depends greatly on what time you’ll be holding the shower. Most bridal showers are held during the afternoons during tea time, so having an array of finger food is a must. Here are some things you can include:

• Sushi (Tips on how to make sushi)
• Sandwiches




Sushi for food

Veggies

Muffins

• Quiche
• Veggies and dip
• Muffins

Drinks should be made in consideration of the weather and temperature. If it’s going to be on a warm afternoon, prepare lots of water, fruit juice and sodas. If it is around evening time, make sure that you have warmer drinks such as coffee and tea. Alcohol can be served in both cool and warm temperatures.

If you’ve arranged the shower to be held during dinner time, you can also prepare at least two main courses for your guests.

Of course, no shower is complete without a cake! Indulge your guests’ sweet tooth. You can arrange to have mini wedding cakes to be served at the shower with different flavors. For a more personal twist, you can make miniature replicas of the wedding cake the bride will have on her wedding.

Other Great Things You Can Do!

You can do a lot of other things to surprise the bride and make the shower more enjoyable.

Male dancer


• Hire a male dancer. A bridal shower cliché, true, but it brings in a lot of laughs if you get in a dancer to gyrate to your guests’ enjoyment. Just be sure to hire one from a reputable agency!
• Hire a fortune-teller. Hiring a fortune-teller can be really enjoyable for girls who are curious about their destinies or for women who already know what’s coming (such as your about-to-be-married bride). You can hire one or ask one of your friends who know how to read palms or cards to have a little sit-down session with your friends.

Make your bride’s pre-wedding jitters go away by making sure she has loads of fun and happy memories before making more happy memories with her soon-to-be-husband. For more information regarding this article, read The Guide To Wedding Showers.