Tomorrow is my sister’s bridal shower. Another sister and I were in charge of planning it with our stepmother to help with food. My job was to come up with activities to do during the shower. My sister who is helping with planning and I both decided that we wanted it to be a nice sit down tea with sandwiches and that making toilet paper dresses would not fit with what we were envisioning. We discussed this with the bride and she seemed okay with it.
Here was what I planned as far as activities. As guests arrive, have them write out a memory of the bride on a note card and leave off their name. Once everyone is there, the note cards are read and the bride guesses who wrote what. I figured this would serve as a nice icebreaker. Afterwards, tea and sandwiches will be served. As people finish eating and we start on to presents, the guests will be asked to decorate a square of fabric (I have Sharpies and fabric paint for them to use). These squares will later be sewn into a quilt as a keepsake for the bride. Fabric decorating is happening casually at the same time as present unwrapping. After all the presents are unwrapped, the requisite reading of the brides comments will occur. You know, that goofy thing where somebody writes down what the bride says while unwrapping her presents (“Oh, this is so nice!”, “I didn’t quite expect this, thank you!”, etc) and guests embarrass her by telling that’s what she’ll say on her wedding night. After that lovely tradition :dubious:, we hand out party favors (pretty coffee mugs filled with either coffee beans, tea bags, or jelly beans) and the guests leave.
Now, my train of thought was that could easily last a couple of hours. I’ve talked about the plan to my sister who I am planning with and she seemed alright with it a week ago. Tonight, while putting favors together, she asked me if I had activities picked out for the shower. The bride was in the room with us and, as she wanted to be surprised by what will go down at her shower, I didn’t want to repeat my plan at that point in time. Now, I’m second guessing myself. Should I have planned more? Will guests be pissy because there aren’t any cheesy games and cheap prizes? Will people get bored? Will I get accused of ruining my sister’s bridal shower?
I’m a bit nervous at this point in time. The shower is in about fourteen hours, so there’s still time to get the sort of ugly picture frames and overly perfumed candles that people traditionally receive as bridal shower game prizes. Do you think I should totally replan the shower?
I think that sounds like a very nice party. I’d go home thinking I’d had a good time, and it seems like a good mix of shower stuff, like presents, and mixing and mingling. You might want to think about a way to display the finished fabric squares (if you haven’t already). That will also give people a bit of time to talk and mingle and tell stories, which is part of what these parties are all about anyway. And the people who look for those “traditional” shower games will be satisfied with the “bride’s comments” activity.
Just about the right mix of cheesy and chatty and sweet, that’s what it sounds like to me.
I think it sounds lovely! Personally, I don’t like the cheesey games.
About having a lot of stuff planned…don’t forget, a lot of time will be taken up by people just chatting and getting to know each other, people haven’t seen each other in a while catching up, etc.
I think it sounds quite nice, too. I especially like the idea of making the memory quilt. That’s something she can cherish for the rest of her life.
If I were you, I’d save the “comment cards” and put them in a photo album beneath a picture of the person who wrote it. (Have the guests either write their names on the back, or assign a number to each so you can keep track of them.)
Really, as long as these women all know each other, they will fill in any “dead time” with chatter, but if you’re really worried, have a party game on “standby.”
Here’s a party game I adapted from the book Memoirs of a Geisha: Big Liar. Each guest tells two short stories about the bride-to-be, one the truth and the other a complete fabrication. The guests then guess which one is the lie, scoring a point for a correct answer. At the end of the game (you decide how many rounds) the one with the most points wins a prize. (A pretty potted plant works well for the prize.)
If you want the quilt to be a lifelong keepsake, ixnay the arpies-Shay, unless they’re the ones specifically made for writing on fabric (which I think are meant for autographing T-shirts, or something like that.) Regular sharpies aren’t made for fabric, and will bleed over time.
Otherwise, sounds great, especialy the memories guessing-game! It all sounds fun, yet civilized. (I’ve been through one TP-dress bridal shower, and that was enough for a lifetime.)
What a good sister you are, MissMossie! It sounds like a delightful, low-key shower. I wouldn’t worry at all. If you’re stressing over not filling time, you might want to bring a game like Taboo or Apples to Apples that people can drop in and out of. But if you don’t have a game like that already, don’t sweat it.
Exactly what I thought- OMG the showers with the endless games and crap “What’s in your purse?” “Who has a bobby pin? An out of state driver’s license?” Whatever! They all suck. Your party sounds like the perfect shower. Believe me, people would rather chat and socialize then sit there making lists of marriage tips and crap like that.
Thank you for all of your nice comments. I read the half that were up this morning as I was getting ready and they calmed me down a lot. The shower went really well for the most part. Everyone enjoyed the memory cards and thought the quilt making was a really neat idea.
The only downside to the shower was with the groom’s family. They live around two hours away from us and the shower started at two o’clock. Around three o’clock, his mother called to let us know they were leaving. Needless to say, by five, when they finally showed up, most of the guests were gone. Their solution to being late was simple though. To quote one of the groom’s sisters, “We’ll just stay a little longer to make up for being late.” Niether the sisters nor the mother had RSVPed and none of the group was on really good terms with the bride anyways. Staying a little extra late was not what any of the bride’s family had in mind for these people. Oh well. C’est la vie!
Ah, so this is the type of things that go on in showers. Another mystery revealed.
Well, MissMossie, for what it’s worth, your plans sound thoughtfull, kind, and classy. You are being a great sister.
That having been said, I will now add bridal showers, to the list of things that make me desperately grateful I’m a guy, which includes body waxing , menstruation, and clothes without pockets. Yee gods, I think I would rather spend an evening forced to watch continuous Jerry Springer while listening to endless Barry Manilow records…
-trupa, whose stag featured copious amounts of beer & shooters, laser tag, and a movie with poorly written dialogue and correspondingly large and fiery explosions. but no strippers, at Mrs. trupa’s request..
And coo over precious baby clothes. Isn’t it precious? Isn’t it cute? Isn’t it sweet? It’s so tiny! They didn’t have stuff like that when I had my baby. You made this by hand! I wish I had the patience to do that.
A sampling of comments from a recent “for women only” baby shower I attended. I had to kind of chuckle at the people who said what a good thing it was that no men were invited–because they wouldn’t appreciate the time spent unwrapping and cooing over baby things. As an unmarried young woman, I’m not sure I quite grasp the cooing thing myself-- but the house we were at would never have held even a third as many men in addition to all the women who were there.
The baby shower was for a member of my church, who is active in several smaller groups that were invited to the shower, plus a few friends and family type people.
The daddy is part of a different group that I am a part of (also from the church). We had a “Daddy Shower”–very loosely speaking. We collected money, gave Daddy a gift card, cupcakes, a balloon and a card addressed to the Daddy to be (very hard to find, cards for Mommy or cards for Parents, or cards that assume baby has arrived are common, cards just for Daddy to be are much more rare).
I’m not into wedding tradition at all, but that sounded like a shower that anyone could have fun at. I like the quilt idea a lot! Sounds like you did a good job.
