Getting married can be so stressful: Ordering the catering, getting fitted for dresses, renting a reception hall, picking out flowers…and that’s just the beginning! A gal needs a break! That’s what the bridal shower is all about (that and gifts, of course).
For those of you who don’t know, a bridal shower is a traditional women’s party where the guests bring the bride-to-be presents she might need for her new role as wife. It’s usually close family and friends, in a daytime setting, informal but still meant to be sophisticated.
This is not to be confused with the bachelorette party in which the bride and her girls go and get puking drunk at a make-strip club with phallus-shaped suckers hanging out of their mouths. Those parties have an entirely DIFFERENT set of games (and you don’t invite your mother).
For the bridal shower, however, your mom is going to be there as is your mother-in-law and probably your grandmother (and even sometimes the groom and his men… but not traditionally), so you want to be on your best behavior. You still want to have fun, though. Therefore, here are the perfect bridal shower party ideas for you and your big day!
Let the bridal shower games begin!
#1 How Much Do You Know About the Couple?
One of the best ways to find out how much your friends really know about you and your husband-to-be is to play “How Much Do You Know About the Couple.” Make a printout of little known trivia about you and your beau. Print out a second page divided into two lists, a “his” and “hers” list, and have your guests try to figure out which trivia goes with which person. The player who guesses the most correctly wins.
#2 Match the Famous Couple
Something a little simpler is to match famous couples. Randomly put a list of famous women on one side of a page and their male counterparts on the other side of the page. Have your guests match the famous couples. You can make them real people or characters from a movie or book – as long as they’re in love it’s anyone’s game.
#3 Pin the Bow on the Bride
Another fun bridal shower idea is to play “Pin the Bow on the Bride.” This is very similar to pin the tail on the donkey. Make a large printout of the bride-to-be (or a large drawing of a bride in her wedding gown). Now, attach a lacy bow to a long stick-pin.
Have each of your guests take a turn. First, blindfold the guest playing and spin her around three times. Then direct her towards the picture (you don’t want your dizzy guest blindly poking a needle in the other people in the room) and have her pin the bow on top of the bride’s head. The guest who is closest to the mark wins.
#4 Ad-Lib Wedding Vows
Are you trying to write your own wedding vows? Perhaps you’re at a loss for the right words to say to the man you’re about to make your vows to? Never fear: Your guests are here to help!
One of the funniest games to play at your bridal shower is to create wedding vows based on ad-libs. Print out a copy of the traditional vows; whenever there is a noun, verb, adverb, or adjective, remove the word and leave a blank line instead. Don’t show this to your guests yet!
Have your guests make a list of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives based on the number if these you removed from the traditional vows. For example, “We join this man and this woman…” becomes “We join this ___ and this ___….” Your guests have to fill in the blanks with their randomly witty nouns. This game gets funnier the more creative you are with your English, so encourage your guests to get silly!
#5 Bridal Shower Bingo
Who doesn’t love Bingo? You can easily make a printout of a traditional bingo card and change the squares to bridal/wedding related items instead of numbers. In other words “B1” becomes something else like a “gown” or “cake.”
The thing to remember, however, whenever you’re playing Bingo as one of your fun wedding shower games is that you have to make sure none of the cards match or else you’ll have Bingos all around! Creating individual Bingo cards can be time consuming, but this game can be played numerous times with the same card; just make sure the guests use a piece of candy to mark their box and not something permanent.
#6 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress
One of the most popular wedding shower ideas is to create a toilet paper dress! Divide your guests into teams (the number of teams will depend on the number of guests). Give each team a roll of toilet paper or two and have them create and then decorate one of their members in a toilet paper dress. The team with the most creative dress wins. This game is particularly entertaining when you have a bridal shower you allowed the groom and his guys to be a part of since you can do a “man vs. woman” version of this (because few things are funnier than a man in a toilet paper dress).
#7 Kiss the Groom
There are two versions of the “Kiss the Groom” game and each of these is fantastic fun for your wedding shower. The first version of the game is very much like the “Pin the Bow on the Bride” game above.
Make a large printout of the groom and hang it on the wall. Have each of your guests put on some lipstick and get ready. Once again, blindfold the first player and spin her around three times. The goal is to kiss the groom on the lips and the player with the closest kiss wins. Of course, this doesn’t have to be a picture of the actual groom; it could just be a printout of a handsome hunk in a tux (get creative with you “groom”).
If, however, your bridal shower has both men and women, have the men stand in a circle with their arms joined, facing each other. Put the first female player blindfolded in the center of the circle and have her spin clockwise three times. As she’s spinning, have the men spin three times counter-clockwise.
When it’s time to stop, the guest has to go to a random guy and try to “Kiss the Groom”. This game is a toss between “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” and “Spin the Bottle” and it’s TONS of bridal shower fun!
#8 What’s in the Bride’s Purse?
Another great wedding shower idea is to play a game called “What’s in the Bride’s Purse?” For this game, you’ll need to printout a list of items and how many points they’re worth. For example: a cell phone, lipstick, tissue, and key could all be one point. Mascara, lip gloss, and a compact could all be two points. The more interesting the items are, the higher the points go. Make sure the list you print out has some of the things that are really in your purse and some that are not in there.
Give the correct amount of points to the corresponding correct answer. You can, if you want, remove points for items the guest didn’t choose. In other words, if you have a pen on the list and a pen in your purse, but the player didn’t guess “pen” on the list, then you can deduct the number of points they would have gotten. The person with the most points at the end wins.
#9 Scavenger Hunt
Whether it’s a wedding shower or a birthday party, a scavenger hunt is always a good idea! Scavenger hunts can be created to make up anything you want.
One of the most fun bridal shower scavenger hunts is to create a list of items that are wedding related and send your guests out to find them! Divide your guests into teams and make the items things that can be found in your neighborhood or home (someplace within walking distance of your bridal shower). Your guests can take a picture of the item as proof and then show you the pictures once they’ve scavenged everything on the list. Bridal themed items include a piece of cake, a pair of rings, a tuxedo, white flowers, lit candles, balloons, etc.
If you’re going for a non-bridal scavenger hunt, the sky’s the limit. You can put random things on the list such as an acorn, a bearded man, a pink hat, a rusty license plate… anything you can imagine!
While your guests are on their hunt, you can either join them or prepare for the next game.
#10 Decorate the Cupcake
One of the most popular wedding shower traditions is to bake a toy ring into a cake. As your guests eat, whoever finds the ring is said to be the next person to get married. A great way to change this up is to make cupcakes instead!
Bake a ring into a cupcake and when you remove the cupcakes from the pan, mix them up so you don’t know which cupcake has the ring. Have each of your guests take a cupcake and decorate it with a wedding theme.
For this, you’re going to want different colored icing choices and many different types of sprinkled and cupcake toppers. Oh, and this game gets a little messy! The prize goes to the best decorated cupcake; however, tradition still holds that whoever has the ring in their cupcake is the next person to get married! There are two winners to this game.
Bridal showers are meant to be fun and full of joy and laughter. It’s a time of gift giving and good “girl talk.” While men are not traditionally at these showers, some people do allow the groom and his men to be there. If you have your man at your party, be sure to adjust the games accordingly. In fact, you can even create new games specifically designed to include the guys!
Your wedding shower should be fun and full of laughter, but also make sure the games are appropriate for all ages (you never know who’s going to show up at these things!). So tell us, what games will you be playing at your bridal party?
Cover photo: weheartit.com
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