Bridal Shower Etiquette

Series Summary

Bridal showers are traditionally held one to two months before the wedding takes place and usually involve giving gifts to the bride. Bridal showers vary greatly in tradition with some people holding large, complex bridal showers and other holding informal get together between close friends. In general though, bridal showers allow the bride and her guests celebrate her future marriage through gifts, food, drink and games.

If you've got a bridal shower to throw the task may seem daunting, but in this free video series our expert event planner will teach you about a variety of bridal shower games to fill the time. You will get tips on bridal shower etiquette and decorations and then learn the rules to a variety of bridal shower games. Learn how to play the apron game, draw the bride, and the bridal balloon pop. Get tips on playing the toilet paper wedding dress game, bridal bingo and bridal pictionary. You will also learn how to make a rehearsal bouquet from the bows on the gifts. If you can't think of anything to do at a bridal shower, let our expert teach you the rules to a variety of fun and interesting bridal shower games.

Video Transcript

"Today I'm going to teach you how to plan, host, and execute a fantastic bridal shower and there's a few key things that I want to review with you as far as bridal etiquette goes. Some things you want to remember to do. One thing you want to do is get with your bride and find out if she has an idea for a theme if you wanted to be a bridal shower that just for home goods, you can really figure out what kind of presents people are going to bring and it's going to help you with your decor. Also, you'll want to know who the bridal shower is thrown by and typically that's the maid of honor. If the maid of honor is not available to throw the bridal shower, then the mother of the bride or a bride's maid, a close family member. You can work down the list that way but typically it is thrown by the maid of honor. Also, you want to remember, you want to plan the bridal shower two to four weeks before the wedding. Get with the bride and make sure it's not going to conflict with anything else she has going on and plan well enough in advance so you can get the invitations out two to three weeks before the bridal shower. So you would want to allow yourself almost a total of seven weeks. Four weeks out from the wedding to have the date of bridal shower set and then three weeks prior to that send out your invitations that way everybody is going to know where to go. Also, you want to know how long the bridal shower is going to be. Typically, it ranges from two to three hours and with that, you're going to want to time line. You want to plan out enough time for host and guest to mingle as well as open presents. If you're going to have food to eat and to play some games, so those are all good things you want to give yourself a time line and make sure you have enough time to fill up that two to three hours space. If it's going to roam long, you want to make sure that everybody is still going to be able to stay for that amount of time because typically people will have other engagements for that day. Also, when you're conducting an event of that length of two to three hours, think about refreshments. What time of day are you going to have the bridal shower? If you're going to do it afternoon, things that are typical to provide punch, sodas, water and you can have finger foods which is always a hit at a bridal shower. You probably don't want to plan a full meal. So things like finger sandwiches, vegetable trays, cheese trays, things that are easily accessible and not very messy always a good idea and once you have the number of RSVPs, you're going to want to plan enough food to keep everybody sustain for you two to three hours for your bridal shower. So those are all key things to remember. Also with your invitations, you going to want to let them know whose throwing it, where it would be thrown, how long it's going to be, what time it's going to start, where the bride is registered, and then also let the typical duration of it's going to be. Give them your name and number so they can respond with any questions as well. As long as you have those key basic points down, you're going to throw a great bridal shower for your bride to be."