A Fun, Yet Frugal Wedding Shower

Home Family Parties and Entertaining Weddings and Anniversaries A Fun, Yet Frugal Wedding Shower

Wedding Shower Games: Fun and Cheap

At my own bridal shower and at showers I've attended, we had some fun games that were virtually free or simply the cost of paper. One game played at my bridal shower (prizes were homemade scented hangers) was a game of figuring out which shower guest (excluding relatives) had known me, the bride, the longest. Other shower games I've seen that were inexpensive include:

1. Make as many words (general words, wedding or kitchen related, etc.) as you can out of the Bride's-or Bride & Groom's-names in a set time. And the guest with the most words wins a small prize.
   
   
2. Cut out ads from magazines and newspapers of common household products & cover over the label. (A variation of this was simply giving the logo of the product/company & having the guests guess at it.) Have the guests pass these around for a set amount of time. The person who has guessed the most correctly wins a small prize.
   
   
3. If children are to be included (it's also fun, if a bit silly- for adults), try having a few small prizes wrapped up and distribute balloons with pieces of paper inside that have silly messages and the word "winner" for however many prizes you wish to give away (a variation of this is simply putting blank slips of paper & timing the game to see who can collect the most). Here's the catch the balloons can only be popped by the act of sitting on them. It makes for a lot of fun for the children and adults both. (It's harder to pop a balloon with your rear than you might think!)

Wedding Shower Games: Thank You

Purchase a package or two (depending on amount of guests) of Thank You notes and then you take the envelopes and have the guests address one as the arrive.

You get a pretty basket or bowl and add the completed ones to it. Through out the shower you can have drawings for "little" doorprizes. It serves 3 purposes. First, it's an easy, unstressful and unintimidating game. Also, it's a gift for the bride (or new mother) and you can even add stamps if you want. Finally, the bride will be very appreciative with all the things going on that she has a pre-addressed Thank you card to send every guest that came to her shower. And that little bit of non-stress is a gift in itself.
Kathy

Wedding Shower Games: Decorate the Bride

Here's a great (cheap) and fun wedding shower game. It's called Toilet Paper Bride. Divide the guests(except the bride) into groups of 4 or 5. Give each group a 4-pack of cheap toilet paper (I bought mine at Sam's). Then instruct the groups to choose one member to be the bride. The rest of the group should fashion a wedding dress out of the toilet paper. You can give them hints to be creative, make a veil, or just let them go on their own. Send each group to a separate area of the house so they can't see what the other groups are doing. This was easily the most popular game at a shower I gave.
Sheila F.

Wedding Shower Games: A Matter of Time

It depends on the bride's age and her interests but I have a couple ideas for a bridal shower. If the couple is just starting out, you can have each person invited bring a gift for a specific time of day. For example, if you get 7am, this might suggest a basket of coffees and mugs with a newspaper tucked in. Or if you received 8pm, maybe movie videos, laundry supplies, etc.
Alicia S. in Essex Fells, NJ

Wedding Shower Games: Themed for the Bride

One game that is a lot of fun is the "Suitcase Game." You take a suitcase and fill it with a variety of clothing items big, straw hat, colorful boxers, rain galloshes, 2 gloves that don't match, etc. Anything that would look silly together but don't let anyone else see it. Blindfold the bride and tell her that she is on her honeymoon and they are getting ready to go to dinner and all of a sudden the lights go out! She must get ready in the dark. Then have her open the suitcase & start putting on the clothes. She must put everything on before she can leave for dinner. It's very funny to watch. Between friends, family and hostesses you should be able to pull everything together without spending a cent. The pictures are hilarious! I think it's more fun than the traditional wedding shower games found in books anyway. Those books can be very expensive.

I have found that the best shower themes are those where you accentuate the personality of the person you are giving the shower for. For instance, we had one where the person getting married was a "country girl," so we had a western theme. For centerpieces we had coke bottles with little bitty bandanas tied around the neck of the bottle (cheap!). Finger food worked perfectly with this (inexpensive appetizers, etc). This works for any preference for the bride-to-be. You should be able to get lots of the decorations from her friends that she hangs out with and enjoys the same types of things.

Another idea was for another friend. It was a sit-down affair and we had each friend (hostess) decorate one table of their own so it really added a personal touch. Each one looked different. Some had pictures, some had antiques, teapots, candles, etc. It turned out beautifully! And some of the table decorations cost nothing because they were items people already owned.
Debbie

Wedding Shower Games: Holidays Theme

I attended a shower which had the "holidays" as theme. Each of us was assigned a holiday and asked to bring something for the bride/groom/home that pertained to that holiday. I had the 4th of July. The couple automatically had decorations for every holiday. Much better than "over-the-years-finally-I-can-afford-holiday-specific-decor!"
Joy

Wedding Shower Games: Fill the Pantry Game

I also have a wedding shower in my future. A good theme would be a "fill the pantry". Ask guests to bring 1 item of canned food. THAN for a great game, you can have a little quiz for the bride to be about her hubby to be (get the answeres from him before hand). Things like birthday, SS number, favorite whatevers, clothes size ect. For every question she gets wrong, you tear the lable off a can. It is fun to see how much the bride knows (or doesn't know). It also provides food for the couple and interesting meals for those between paychecks time
CW

Wedding Shower Games: Recipe

Ask all your invitees to make one dish and bring it. Also bring an index card on which they have written the recipe for the dish. On the other side of the card, they should write some "marriage advice", the funnier, the better. (The person giving the shower should coordinate a little bit, so she will get an array of appetizers, entrees, salads, desserts.)

You have just got all the food for the party, the cards can provide some entertainment and be placed into a card box or recipe book for the bride to use after she's married.
Laurann W.

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