Bridal Shower Gifts

Bridal showers are a great time for the ladies to get together and shower the bride to be with gifts that celebrate the role she is soon to be taking up as a wife. Bridal shower gifts can follow the theme of the bridal shower itself. A morning coffee or brunch bridal shower might inspire gifts for the morning like coffee, robes and more. An afternoon tea and dinner party can inspire leisure time and evening activity bridal shower gifts.

Wedding Showers Unite Two Families

One of the great parts about getting married is the co-mingling of two families, two sets of traditions and a lot of internal family rituals. Wedding showers can celebrate this and help blend the traditions of both sides of the family before the wedding ceremony.

Games People Play

Most of the women who attend a bridal shower have at least one thing in common: they are all there to celebrate the bride get ready for her wedding. When you have that many women, some whom may be meeting for the first time, bridal shower games are the way to go because not only do they get conversation started, they can also help increase the enjoyment of the party.

Three good bridal shower games to get your party guests talking include:

Eat & Tell - Set up a buffet and for each food item type on the table, label them with different topics such as high school, college, first kiss - etc. For each food type a person has on their plate, they have to reveal something with regard to the topic mention (e.g. tell the story of their first kiss, what was their favorite activity in high school and what did they want to be when they were college, etc.)

Play Detective - as guests arrive, give them a note card with the name of another guest. The goal of the game is to discover fun events, information and stories about that person without actually talking to them. It can be hard, especially if some of the guests don’t know each other, but it can be fun to discover one anecdote about the person on their card.

Old Fashioned Truth or Dare (Sans the Dare) - Let everyone have a drink and some snacks and gather them in a circle either in a comfortable area or around a table. For this bridal shower game, the idea is to have fun and laugh, not to really embarrass anyone or reveal deep dark secrets. Some great questions to get the game started are:

• Describe one of your most embarrassing moments.
• If you were a character in Veggie-Tales, what vegetable would you be and why?
• If you could describe yourself in one word, what word would that be?
• Cast yourself in a Disney movie - who would you be and why?
• Can you answer the question: 'how many hairs are there on Chewbacca?'
• Do you have a tattoo? What is it?
• What's the goofiest thing you've ever done at work?

Customs & Bridal Showers

Do you know the tradition and customs behind bachelor parties and bridal showers? For those who like to know, here is a little history lesson.

The bachelor party dates back to the times in Ancient Sparta. Sparta was a city-state in Ancient Greece. At the time the bachelor party was considered the future groom’s last chance to gather money for his future by gambling. After the marriage took place, his wife would take over the finances. Since she ran the home, she also controlled the purse strings.

Bridal showers actually got their start not from celebrating the woman’s betrothal, but because a woman’s father disapproved of the daughter’s choice in husbands. If a father did not give his blessing to the marriage, he did not have to provide a dowry for his daughter’s future marriage. Bridal showers took the place of the dowry in order to provide the bride with household items and supplies to seed her future marriage home with. Our modern concept of the bridal shower did not begin until after the late 1890’s.

Purse Ice Breaker

Put a scale in the middle of the floor and have everyone weigh their purses----whoever has the heaviest/lightest can win a small prize. Commenting over everyone´s weights will get the group talking.

Bridal Shower Gifts

Some popular bridal shower gifts today may include:

• A Thin Digital Camera - Digital cameras are getting more and more compact. Every bride to be has a hundred different things to do and to remember. A thin digital camera will fit in her purse and let her take snaps of the different items she wants to remember so she can compare them all together later rather than trying to remember a certain shade or pattern
• Comedy Gifts - A gift of comedy can be a funny book, a funny movie, or tickets to a comedy club - planning a wedding is stressful as all get out so giving them something to make them laugh is a great gift
• A Day at the Spa - Go in with the other girls and pick up a spa gift certificate that lets her get a manicure, pedicure, hair done and even a massage - talk about shedding the stress and pampering her
• Travel and Guide Books - Do you know where they are planning to have their honeymoon? Do they have more than one place they are talking about? Give her some guide and travel books to the different destinations so they can check out the different options and make their planning easier

Just How Well Do You Know Them?

Have the maid of honor or another bridesmaid prepare a list of questions, either about the bride or the bride and groom. Examples like, "Where did she work during college?", "How did they meet?" and "What´s her favorite TV show?" make for interesting conversation. Whoever answers the most questions correctly wins the prize.

Quiz the Bride

Before the shower, have the maid of honor or another bridesmaid interview the groom with a series of questions (What´s his favorite TV show, favorite color . . . and ´Newlywed Game´ questions such as "What does he do that annoys you the most?", "If he were an animal, what would he be?"). At the shower, the bride has to try and match his answers.

Freshen Up Old Ideas

Freshen up your bridal shower ideas by searching on terms like party planning, wedding celebrations, marriage showers, wedding showers, hen party, bachelorette party and even bachelor party. Why search on bachelor party when you are looking for bridal shower ideas? Ideas do not have to be limited by gender. In fact, in some areas, a hen party might take themselves out for a golf social, which involves traveling from pub to pub and doing a shot in each one. That’s not what you might typically think of as a party for women, but why not?

Bridal shower ideas can be found everywhere. The only limitations are the ones you create yourself. So don’t limit your bridal shower ideas and scan ideas for all kinds of parties – a bridal shower that embraces alternate ideas is not only fun, but also very memorable.

Wedding Night Quips

Have the maid of honor or another bridesmaid write down the bride´s comments as she´s opening her gifts. At the end, read them back to her, prefacing them with ´This is what (Bride´s name) will say on her wedding night.´ It can get pretty funny, especially if you don´t tell her ahead of time what you´re planning (otherwise she might be too careful about what she says!).

Holiday Bridal Shower Cakes

Do you have to make a cake for the bridal shower? Some bridal showers incorporate holiday themes, particularly standard holidays, that may fall close to the wedding date or the bridal shower date. For example, a couple marrying at Christmas may have a Christmas tree cake at the bridal shower. Here are a few ideas for choosing your bridal shower cake:

• A table of mini-wedding cakes is a cute idea, especially if you are going for the all out wedding themed bridal shower. The mini wedding cakes can be single serving, so be sure to order enough for the entire party.
• Holiday themed bridal shower cakes are a real kick especially when you incorporate ideas from major holidays like Halloween, Christmas, Easter and more.
• Themed bridal shower cakes may embrace a theme from the bridal shower itself, much like a kid’s birthday cake does – for example, if the bride is a sport’s enthusiast and the honeymoon is going to be spent scuba diving, skiing or doing some other great activity, theme the bridal shower and the cakes around that idea.
• Picture themed cakes are a neat way to go, especially in honoring the bride parties; silk screening allows you to take several photographs of the bride at various points in her life and creating a scatter picture as the cake decoration – this is a real heart string tugger, especially when you have photos of the bride as a baby, child, teenager and young adult.

Who Am I? Ice Breaker

As everyone comes into the shower, tape a piece of paper to their backs with the name of a famous person written on it---athletes, politicians, singers and actors are all great choices. Each person has to try to figure out who she is by asking questions of the other guests, but only questions that can be answered ´yes´ or ´no.´ Your guests will mingle as they ask each other questions, and the first person to figure out who she/he is wins a prize.

Pass the Presents

Purchase a variety of small presents, ranging from gag gifts or things found at the dollar store to nicer things such as bath oils, inexpensive earrings, etc. You´ll want several less gifts than you have guests (i.e. if there are 15 players, have 11 or 12 gifts). Wrap all of the presents in different boxes and have everyone sit in a circle on the floor with the gifts in the center. Set a timer for 10 minutes or so (maybe 15-20 minutes if you have more than 15 people). The bride starts by rolling a pair of dice; if she gets doubles, she takes a gift. Then pass the dice around the circle. Anyone who rolls doubles may take a present. When all the gifts are gone the guests can start take gifts from other guests instead of from the center of the circle. They can also trade freely. Keep passing the dice around until the timer goes off. Whoever has gifts at the end can keep them. Only then does everyone get to unwrap the presents.

Guessing Game

Find a large bottle, jar or other clear container and fill it with buttons, candy, or other small objects (be sure to count whatever you put in!). Pass it around and have everyone guess how many objects there are---the closest guess wins!

Wedding Showers Unite Two Families

Want a wedding shower that incorporates both families' traditions and cultures into the mix? Plan a wedding shower that unites the two families in tradition.

The invitations should request that each person prepare a dish - something personal that they make whether it's a family recipe, an appetizer or a dessert. They should write down the recipe for the dish they prepare and put that in their card. Wedding showers can then be a banquet of potluck dishes and the bride to be is presented with a catalog of recipes for the future.

This can be a really great treat for a bride who doesn't have a lot of family recipes, or a great way to pass on new traditions from one generation to the next. The recipes can be printed up beforehand and bound in a beautiful book format with a table of contents. The coordinator might go the extra mile for the wedding shower and include a mini-biography of each person who provided a recipe.

Second Marriage Bridal Shower

Is the bride getting married for the second time? Are you looking for some ideas about how to make her second bridal shower unique from the first one? 


Focus the shower's efforts totally on the bride. Consider the bridal shower as a celebration of the woman. If she enjoys doing artwork, give her gifts of art supplies like canvas, paints and art pencils. If she is an avid reader, pick out a book from each guest that they think she might need. If she enjoys fitness, give her gifts like items for a home gym, gift certificates to working with a personal trainer or fitness clothes.

You might also make a calendar of 'pithy' or joking advice for each day of the first year of the marriage. You might make up a tip jar with all your suggestions for how to promote fun and health in her life and her married life. Bridal showers are a way to say we love and support you; this is a way to let her splurge on herself while she concentrates her energy and funds on the wedding she is planning.