Hosting a Wedding Shower

First of all, you’ll need to talk to her about her expectations and to come up with a date for the shower. If this is going to be a surprise shower, you’ll need to figure out a way to get her to the location without giving the surprise away. (Never worked for me, I always knew about the surprise parties.)

Then, decide if you’re giving it by yourself, with the bridal party or just a few other friends. Remember, an invitation to a shower (except for the wedding party and mothers of the engaged couple) is a request for a gift so you don’t want to have too many showers with the same people being invited.

Once you have a date, decide on the type of shower and the location. The shower venue might impact the date so you will have to be flexible here. Now, my mother only will host a shower in a restaurant – a banquet room, cocktail party preceding the luncheon, a sit down luncheon followed by dessert and then the opening of gifts. Apparently, this is the way it was done when she got married soâÂ?¦ “My” crowd just chose someone’s home and divided the cost and the chores and handled it that way. Some people have the shower in a restaurant and each person pays for their own lunch; sometimes there is a set menu but often you’ll just order off the menu. No way is best – it’s strictly up to you and the bride.

Next you’ll want to decide on a theme – when I went to showers regularly, there were miscellaneous showers (any type of gift, often selected from the bride’s registered list), linen shower (anything for the bed & bath including lotions, powder, etc.) kitchen, lingerie and so on. Now with so many couples either living together before the wedding or having been in their own home for some years, there isn’t really much of anything they need.

Here are some ideas for a theme – a tea meaning you serve types of tea with tea sandwiches, little pastries, etc. (I’ve always wanted to host one of these.), a shower with a time listed on it- the guest brings a gift for that “time” of day (ie: alarm clock for 6am, subscription to a magazine for 3pm, etc.) – each invitation would have a different time on it along with an explanation of how the gift selection works. Or, no theme, just a nice luncheon at a home or in a restaurant, or perhaps a park if the weather is nice.

Next, setting a budget will dictate the type of shower and how large the guest list will be. If you’re sharing the showers costs, your budget can be larger and you might include more guests. This figure will also indicate how extensive will the party be – a three or four course luncheon in a restaurant, a potluck at someone’s home, or just snacks and cake somewhere.

The guest list is important and unless it’s a surprise, you’ll need to talk to the bride about this. You don’t want to hurt someone feelings by not including them. If it’s a surprise, you might talk to the fiancÃ?© because he will know some of the people to invite. The mothers of both the bride and groom should also be of assistance in getting a list together. Be careful if you plan a surprise – it might not really work out that well for the bride if she has other plans for that day.

Once you have that, you’ll want to buy or create the invitations. A simple but attractive way might be to create them on your computer using paper with wedding themes that are available at your local scrapbook stores. These would be letter size paper, and you type up the information using a computer program like Word and print out the desired number of invitations. (You’ll want to use a decorative font and maybe the colors from the wedding.) Then you can fold them in quarters to put into small square envelopes or into thirds and use a letter size envelope. You can hand address them, or, using a fancy font, print the names and addresses right onto each envelope.

Next come the decorations if you’re having any. I think we made favors for everyone to take home but the “decorations” consisted of what color(s) the paper plates, napkins, etc. were. You’ll need to decide what you might need to buy and make before the date of the shower.

Then, you’ll need to decide on the food and make two lists. One for the non-perishable items you can buy a week or more ahead the good items you need to buy a day or two before the shower. If you’re serving a cake, be sure to order it and pick it up as late as possible. If it has to be refrigerated, it will take up a lot of room in your refrigerator. Try to prepare as much of the food ahead of time.

You may want to have some games before you serve your snacks and/or a meal. Here are some suggestions – ask six questions of everyone (except the bride) – three about the bride and three about the groom. The winner is the one with the most correct answers. To break the ice, you might have each guest relate how she met the bride or a funny story about the bride. If you play games, you may have more than one winner, so be prepared with several prizes if you’re giving out prizes. These prizes might be a popular novel, packet with fancy teas, notecards, lotion, etc.

When it’s time to open the gifts, ask someone to keep a list of who each gift was from and what it was. This will really help the bride when she is ready to write her thank you notes and if any cards get lost the list will provide what was from whom.

Have a great time.