However, if you find yourself planning an upcoming bridal shower on a budget, have no fear: It’s entirely possible to plan a tasteful, fun and sentimental gathering without breaking the bank. Here are five time-saving and cost-cutting ways to throw a beautiful bridal shower:

Invitations
It can be tempting to blow your entire budget for the party on the invitations, but consider saving money (and time) by sending them electronically. Web sites like Pingg.com make sending invitations and tracking responses electronically a breeze. And with an enormous online image database, it’s almost guaranteed that even the pickiest planner will find the perfect invitation design.

Food
Skip hours of baking and frosting and provide your guests with a creative and low-fat ice cream cake. Ice cream sandwiches from The Skinny Cow look sweet when stacked in a pyramid and topped with creative garnishes. Your guests will be thankful for a low-fat snack option, and you will have time to actually enjoy the party. Sandwiches come in strawberry shortcake, chocolate, vanilla, vanilla/chocolate, chocolate peanut butter, mint and cookies n’ cream flavors. Use one flavor for a consistent look or mix and match flavors for extra guest options.

Drink
Sangria is an unexpected and delicious drink to serve at your shower. Added bonus: the ingredients are inexpensive and easy to find. You can even substitute grape juice and seltzer water for wine for a tasty non-alcoholic version. The only other ingredients required are slices of fresh fruits such as oranges, pears and peaches, and about 1/4 cup of sugar. For variations on the classic recipe, check out Cooks.com or AllRecipes.com

Games
Rework an old classic by playing a game of Bridal Shower Bingo. First, create copies of a blank grid resembling a bingo card. As the guests arrive, have them fill out the grid with gifts that they think the bride will receive. (The free space is in the middle and players can write their own gift in this space.) As the bride opens a gift, players cross it off their bingo card. Award a prize to the first person to fill five spaces in a row, across or diagonally.

Favors
Pamper your guests with homemade body scrubs in simple, elegant glass mason jars. You can even customize the recipe below to include your favorite scents and colors.

Homemade Body Scrub

You will need:
3 cups Epsom salt (or coarse sea salt)
1 cup oil (almond, canola or olive oil usually works best)
Essential oils for fragrance
Mason jars

Instructions:
First, measure out your salt and pour into a large container. Measure out the oil and slowly pour into the salt while stirring. Finally, add the essential oil to the desired strength. Attach any desired ribbons, hang tags or other decorations to the outside of the jar.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

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When planning bridal shower games, you will need to take into consideration the guests that will be in attendance. If relatives and family members will be in attendance, it might be wise to steer clear of games that will offend or embarrass some people. Save those games for the bachelorette party or for a girl’s night out. Also, plan your games ahead of time and know what you will need to play each game. It is always a good idea to have all of the supplies such as pens, pencils, papers and other items ready to go before the party starts. This will save you from looking for these items at the last minute while the guests are waiting. It is also a good idea to know how long each game will take before the party begins. Most games take no longer than 10-15 minutes. Knowing this will help you plan enough games and activities for the bridal shower.

Also, think about prizes for the games. The bridal shower guest might enjoy winning prizes for certain games. There are several ways to go about giving gifts. You might purchase gifts or favors that the guests can take home. Or, consider purchasing gifts that the guests can give to the bride-to-be at the end of the shower. Wrap the prizes and have a basket for the guests to place them in after the games are over. If you plan on doing this, make sure your guests understand that the prizes are intended for the bride.

If you are low on ideas for bridal shower games, here are a few suggestions that almost anyone can enjoy.

Love Poem: Write twenty romantic words on index cards. These words can include passion, roses, chocolate, love, candles, massage, lips, hugs and kiss. On another set of cards, write 20 non-romantic words such as nose, house, car, cat, and telephone. Stack each set of cards in two different piles and hand out a pencil and paper to each guest. Instruct each player to draw a card from each pile. After each guest has drawn two cards, tell them to write a silly love poem using words from each card they have drawn. When everyone is finished, have players read the poems out loud. You might get something like, “How do I love thee, let me count the cars.”

Life Line: Pass a spool of string or yarn around to each guest. Instruct the guests to cut off a piece of string however long they want, but do not tell them what it will be used for. After everyone has a string, have guests take turns telling about them selves. Tell them to wrap the string around their finger and they must talk about themselves until all of the string is around their finger. You can give prizes for the person who tells the most facts about themselves or the one with the most interesting facts.

The Magic Word: As everyone arrives for the bridal shower, give each guest a pin to wear on his or her shirt. You can make a pin using flowers, a small bridal bell or even a bow. Before the shower begins, decide on a magic word, that you think everyone will want to say often, such as wedding or maybe even the groom’s name. Tell the guests the magic word and tell them that the word cannot be mentioned during the shower. If a guest hears another guest say the magic word, they can take that person’s pin and wear it. The guest that has the most pins at the end of the shower wins a prize.

Couple Trivia: Before the shower begins, make a list of several questions about the bride and groom. You might want to include questions such as “Where did the bride and groom met?,” “How long have the bride and groom been engaged?,” “Where did they go for their first date?” Hand out pens and paper and ask each question out loud. The person that gets the most correct wins the game.

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When you are responsible for planning a bridal shower, consider using the Internet to help you with your plans. With a quick Internet search, it is possible to find hundreds of tips and ideas for games and activities. You can find games and activities to suit a girl’s only shower, a traditional bridal shower and even a co-ed shower that includes both men and women.

Before you start planning games and activities for the bridal shower, you will need to take some time to figure how many guests will be in attendance. Also, think about the type of guests that will attend. If you have a small group, you can plan on games and activities that take more time or have more involved rules. If are inviting a large group of guests, you might want to consider playing games that take less time and only need a handful of supplies. Next, think about who will attend the shower. It is easy to plan games for a variety of guests. If you are only inviting the bride’s closest friends, they might enjoy more “risky” games and activities. However, if you will have a mixed group of women, you might think about games that are not offensive. For co-ed showers, consider planning a few games that will help the men and women work together or those that pit the two against each other. Trivia games are great for co-ed showers.

Also, when you start planning games, you will need to think about the amount of room you have available. If you have limited space, you might not want to play games that need a lot of floor or table space. It will be more difficult for a large group to move around with games that require that. Look for games that can be done seated and with only paper and pencils.

Now that you have decided the basics of the bridal shower, you will need to come up with ideas for games and activities. It is not necessary to spend a lot of money when you are planning games. Most ideas that you will want to use are right there on the Internet. You can search websites for free and use game ideas for your next shower.

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One of the most popular games at every bridal shower is bridal bingo. For this game, you will need as many bingo cards as you have guests. Fifteen is a good number of base bingo cards to start with. You will also need a list of the words on the bingo cards. Be sure to cut them up so you can pull them out of a hat or some similar container. You will need to give each guest a card. You could, though, have them share cards if you prefer. That might also be a good way to break the ice among guests who have no connection to each other except the bride. All of the bingo cards should have words on them that are associated with weddings, wedding gifts, or romance. In the center of the card should be a free space that can work with any type of line. The hostess should act as the bingo caller. She should pull the small pieces of paper out of the hat and call out each word. When the guest has a word on her card, she should mark through it with her pencil. If a guest can mark through a complete line of words in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal method, she should shout “Bingo.” The host should check her card, and if, indeed, she has gotten all of the words, she will be deemed the winner of that game. The winner should receive some sort of wedding favor prize. There are a number of free printable cards on the internet along with word lists to help you in planning for this great game.

Another fun game to play at a bridal shower is a bridal word scramble. Each guest will be given a sheet with a number of different words related to weddings scrambled on them. Guests will also need a writing utensil for this game. The words should be fairly easy to solve, and obviously wedding related. For example, you could use “edwdngi” as wedding for one of the words. Set a time limit, something like ten minutes usually works well, and the guest who can unscramble the most words in ten minutes wins the game.

An additional great game to play at bridal showers involves the names of famous couples. Give guests a sheet of paper with some famous couple halves on them. For example, you could have Michael Douglas as one entry. The other half, Catherine Zeta Jones, is what your guests would have to guess. Some other good entries for this game would be Popeye and Olive Oyl, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Baucall, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Al and Tipper Gore, and Homer and Marge Simpson. Come up with as many as you can. Again, you will need to set a time limit here, and ten minutes seems to work well. The guest who gets the most couples correct wins.

A third great game to play is the “don’t say or do game”. This also makes a wonderful ice breaker for your guests. Each guest wears a clothes pin attached to their clothing. The guests are informed that there are three words that they cannot say. Words like “bride,” “groom,” and “wedding” work well. If any guest hears another guest say these words, that guest can demand their clothes pin. At the end of the game, which is typically the end of the wedding shower, the guest who has managed to obtain the most clothes pins wins.

Another good game is the purse scavenger hunt. Guests are given a list of the items that might be found in a purse. Each guest marks off the item as she hunts through her purse. The guest with the most items in her purse wins the game.

An additional game to play at a bridal shower is a version of memory. Guests are shown a tray of items. The tray should have twenty or so wedding related items. Show it to each of the guests for a few seconds. After the tray has been removed from the vicinity, guests are to list as many items as they can remember on a sheet of paper. The guest who lists the most items on the paper wins the game.

One last good idea for a game to play at your upcoming bridal shower is herbs and spices. Place ten paper cups on a tray or a table. Number them one to ten, and have each guest smell the spices and herbs in the cups. Then have the guests write down what they think each spice or herb is. The guest who guesses the most wins the game.

There are a number of different games you can play at your next bridal shower, but remember that the goal of any of them is fun.

 

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