By Elizabeth Zachry
Last weekend, after months of planning, we finally had the bridal shower! It was fantastic and everyone loved the food and had a great time. After all of the planning that went into this, I realized that even thought I thought I could do it all myself and save money, it is important to know your limits and know when to ask for help. The shower would have been impossible to throw without the help of my sister and my mom, and all of the other bridesmaids. As you get ready to plan your shower, you should keep these tips in mind…
Similar to planning the wedding, you should start with a list of everything you need to take care of and give each item a budget. To start, keep it simple by listing out the major things you need done for the shower. Here is how I had it broken down: invitations, decorations (includes all plates, utensils, etc.), food and beverages, favors, and games. From there, add in the projected budget for each area as a way to keep you in check so you do not get carried away with any one thing and spend more than you can afford. If you are lucky like me and you have a lot of helpers, then it should be pretty easy to divide up the responsibilities.
To make decorating easier, you should pick a theme and color palette. We stuck with the beach theme of the wedding, but feel free to use any theme or colors you choose, you do not have to use the wedding colors. One of the other bridesmaids found some great vases and filled them with sand and starfish, which looked fabulous on the tables. Instead of typical placemats, we used 12×12 scrapbook paper. It was easy to make all of them coordinate and there are so many more paper choices than you get with fabric.
I thought the food was going to be the toughest part, but it turned out to be pretty straightforward and we got so many compliments! Here is our menu (along with some of our secrets!)
Appetizers
- Pita chips and hummus
- Cheese and Crackers
- Veggie Platter
- Quiche (frozen quiche from Costco, super tasty, but also low in cost!)
- Orzo salad (homemade)
- Barbeque Chicken Chopped Salad (from California Pizza Kitchen)
- Asian Chicken Salad (from BJ’s)
- Fruit salad
Dessert
- Red velvet cupcakes (Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix, but with homemade cream cheese frosting piped on)
I do not know how all of you feel about bridal shower games, but my friend hates them. She was pretty adamant about not wanting to have games, but we ignored her wishes. We played my favorite shower game: gift BINGO. Blank BINGO cards were passed out to all of the guests, who then filled in the squares with gift predictions. As the bride opened her presents, people crossed off items until they had five in a row. We ended up with 4 people winning the BINGO game and it made the present opening a lot more interesting!
Good luck with all of your shower planning!
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