7 Steps to throwing an unforgettable Bridal Shower

Hey guys!! I am excited to share this post with y’all because I have seriously developed a LOVE for planning events after planning our wedding last year! My sister in law is getting married at the end of March and I was SOOO excited to throw her a bridal shower & I wanted it to be absolutely PERFECT! I really feel like I’ve developed quite a niche for this whole planning thing… who knows maybe I’ll add event planning to my list along with being a hair stylist & blogging full time? Everyone has been telling me I should start doing event planning on the side…but for now…I’ll just share my tips with yall and go from there!

Below I’ve mapped out the PERFECT way to throw an inexpensive, organized and beautiful shower of any kind, without breaking the bank! I know for me my bridal shower was so special because I got to have ALL of my favorite girls in one place! So, I hope I was able to give my sister in law the shower she always dreamed of! :)

Here are links to most of the items used!

Step 1: Create a vision board on Pinterest & Canva

The first thing on your to do list is to create a vision board of what you the theme to be! I use pinterest to get a general idea of what I want the shower to be like & then I create my own vision board & color scheme on canva.com! You’ll need to download Canva anyway to do make some of the decor I’m linking below, so this should be one of your first steps! It’s super easy to use and comes with templates as well!

When searching pinterest I search for specific genres for a shower, since “bridal shower” is wide range of ideas and can get overwhelming. I searched for things like “pink bridal shower” or “floral bridal shower” to help narrow down my specific ideas! I knew I wanted her shower to be all things girly, floral and pink!

Here is the vision board I created! Refer back to this anytime you’re buying decor, or making decorations, etc! And Click here for the bridal shower pinterest board I created!

Step 2: Make a google spreadsheet of items you’ll need, with prices like the one below!

Step 3: Send out invites

Instead of sending out mailed invitations, I sent everything via https://www.paperlesspost.com/ which is an online invitation website that sends everything out through email! I was able to keep track of people who RSVP’D, and send notes about the shower along the way! Here is the invitation I made below! Paperless post was pretty inexpensive to use & super easy! Along with the theme, I had everyone wear pink and wrote that on the decorations so everyone matched! It was SO cute!

Step 4: Plan the Decor

This is the FUN part! I will link all of the decor I purchased below!

Step 5: Create fun games to Pay!

I used canva to make the games myself, which is similar to what you buy on etsy. For me, they are super easy to make on canva so if you can use a template to create games I would recommend that for sure!! We played :

-Who knows the Bride best, where each guest wrote down answers to questions about the bride!

-I had a jar of Diamonds set up for each guest to guess how many “diamonds were in the jar!

-We also played a game where we had 5 pictures of the bride at different ages and each guest guessed what age she was in each photo!

- Another fun thing was having each guest bring a handwritten Letter to the Bride that I put in a box for her to open at a later point!

Step 6: Buy the Food, Drinks and Decorate as much as possible the night before!

For food we got pretty much everything the day before, so it was all nice and fresh! Here is my grocery list & it was definitely enough food for the 15 people there!

-Orange Juice, Grapefruit Juice, and Mango juice for Mimosas
-Garnishes for Mimosas- Raspberries, Mango, Strawberries
-Water, Tea and Topo Chico
-Fruit Tray
-Cheese & Crackers
-Mini Bagles & Cream Cheese
-Deviled Eggs
-Chicken Salad Croissants
-Mini Cupcakes
-Donut Holes
-Flowers
-Rose Gold Balloons
-My mother in law also made 2 breakfast Casseroles!

Step 7: The day of!

And finally, when the day of the shower arrives its time to put it all together! I usually set up everything how I want it all to look the night before so that when the morning comes it’s all ready and all you really have to do is put out the food! Here are some helpful tips for the day of to help you stay organized:

-Have a bag for trash so you can throw gift wrap it
-Also have scissors nearby the bride too to open up boxes
-Have a pre-made gift log & have someone write everything down since you’re most likely going to be the one handing the bride all the gifts
-Make sure to get a group photo of everyone!