Hosting a Wedding Shower

Hosting A Wedding Shower

A good friend is getting married so you want to give her a bridal shower. What fun!

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 so… “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.