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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One easy way to cut the cost of your bridal shower invitations is to create your own embossed invitations. An embossed invitation gives an elegant, sophisticated feel to the wedding shower. It will help you make the party uniquely yours. A handmade embossed invitation starts with a quick trip to the craft store.  Once there, you will need to invest in an embossing heat tool, embossing powder in your desired colors, an embossing ink pad, and stamps. Don’t forget the paper. The entire set up will cost you about one hundred dollars. This should be the only set of costs involved with this type of invitation. Moreover, most of your set-up costs are materials that you can reuse for other projects like scrapbooking, thank you notes, and other party invitations in the future. When you go to choose the stamp or stamps, be sure to choose something that fits in with the theme of the wedding or the party. Once you have all of your supplies, simply stamp the stamp pad, and then the paper. Sprinkle some powder and shake off the excess. Power up your heating tool, and then apply heat to the stamped and powered area. You now have some of the best, cheapest invitations you can make.

Another easy way to keep the costs down on your bridal shower invitations is by purchasing invitations at the store that are clearance material. For the most part, stores restock their invitation store from season to season. In order to clear out older material, they seriously discount the prices. Some stores discount the prices by up to ninety percent. This means that if you were planning to purchase a set of invitations that cost forty dollars, you can get them for just a few bucks if you are able to find them on clearance. These invitations are usually just as good as the newer models, and usually, there is nothing on the invitations to date them, which means that you can use them at any point in the future. If you have your eye on a set of invitations, watch them for a clearance price.

A third great ways to hold down wedding shower invitation costs is to shop at closeout stores for premade wedding invitations. Closeout stores specialize in purchasing large quantities of merchandise that larger companies simply don’t want in their stock rooms anymore. Maybe they aren’t selling well, or maybe the store needs to make room for new merchandise. Either way, a nice, brand name set of invitations can be yours at about half of the cost they were regularly sold for.

An additional way to keep the costs down on your bridal shower invitations is to make a theme invitation with scrapbooking supplies. With the explosion of the scrapbooking hobby, many stores now carry specialty papers, stickers, and pens that make excellent themed invitation supplies. For example, if you want a beach party wedding shower, you could purchase paper with a shell background. You can find some little flip-flop stickers, and a summery colored pen to complete all of your text with. For around thirty dollars, you have all of the supplies you need to make for any wedding shower theme.

A fifth way to keep your wedding shower invitation costs down is to purchase some software to help you make wedding shower invitations on your computer. There are a number of different programs that will serve to make your wedding shower invitations, cards, and other fun things. Just by some fun paper, and you’re on your way to some neat wedding shower invitations.

Another way to keep your wedding shower invitation costs down is to check with the bride’s wedding invitation printer. Many of them offer some great package deals. For example, sometimes they’ll be happy to give you fifty free shower invitations with the purchase of five hundred wedding invitations. This can be a great deal for you if the bride has already placed a large order for her wedding invitations.

One final way to keep your wedding shower invitation costs down is to look for websites that offer free printable invitations. Many sites will give you a free trial with their product by offering some free invitations. Often these look just as good as the ones you might purchase in the store.

Finding discounted bridal shower invitations or making your own can be a great way to save some cash when you assemble the perfect shower.

 

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When you get ready to send out invitations, the first thing you must consider is design. You have a few options in this arena. First, you could look at the wedding invitations the bride and groom are going to send out. This would give you the chance to send out similar invitations and stick with the overall theme of the wedding. If, however, your wedding shower has a theme of its own, you will probably want to choose an invitation that reflects that theme. You can be as creative as you like in this arena. For example, if you are having a kitchen shower, you could create an invitation that mimics a recipe card. If you are having a beach party shower, you could create invitations that look like little beach towels. You can either create your themed wedding shower invitation yourself or you might look into having someone create it for you. Some places, party stores and such, have bridal shower invitations that are preprinted. You simply fill in the necessary information. If you’d like to have something a bit classier, you can look into having the bridal shower invitations specially printed for your party.

Most printers have a portfolio of invitations they would be willing to create for your party. This tends to look a bit classier and more sophisticated. If neither of these options meets your needs, you will have to create the invitation yourself. With the renewed interest in things like scrapbooking, though, this shouldn’t be a difficult process. Because so many people are interested in creative paper goods, many hobby stores carry a large selection of creative papers, scissors, stamps, and stickers to help you create the invitation of your dreams. Most even have a section of paper that can be fed into your home printer if you wish to computerize your text. For example, if you want to create a beach party wedding shower, you might go to the hobby store and choose a paper with a sea shell background. Print out the invitation wording, cut the edges with a clam shell shaped scissor, and decorate with some beach chair stickers. You suddenly have a much better invitation than you could ever have ordered or purchased in a store.

The invitation design is important, but the invitation wording is equally as important. One of the most important things on the invitation is the name of the bride. You will also need to list the date and time of your wedding shower. Moreover, do not forget to list the location. You will need to list the person who will be handling the RSVPs and their phone number. Listing a deadline to reply to an RSVP is common. Two weeks prior to the shower should give you enough time. You should also consider listing who will be hosting the shower. If you wish, just list the names of the hostesses. You could, though, list the hostess’ titles instead of the names. For example, if the hostesses are the bridesmaids, you could just say something like “The bridesmaids of Jane Doe invite you . . .” Additionally, it is essential to list where the bride-to-be has registered for gifts so your guests can get her something she really desires. A typical wedding shower invitation wording would read something like “Please join us for a bridal shower in honor of Jane Doe on Sunday, January 31 at 2 p.m. at the Franklin Mobile Home Park Clubhouse, 123 America Street, Anywhere, Arkansas.”

Send your invitations out about one month before the shower, and you will give the bride the best party she could hope for.

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Add the Personal Touch

There are many ways you can personalize your handmade bridal shower invitations.  One is to add a picture of yourself and your fiancé to the invitation.  Programs such as Macromedia Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop are great for manipulating photographs and adding special effects.  With such programs, you can create a textured look, add borders, or make a cameo-style oval shape of the photo.

Choose the Right Design

If you don’t want to add a picture to your invitation, you should still add some sort of clip art or design.  Take your time to look around on the Internet for different images that might work for your invitations.  There are many free clip-art images available, and you might be able to find one that will fit your theme beautifully.

Make or Select the Right Paper

Making your own paper for your handmade bridal shower invitations can truly add a special touch.  If you cannot make your own paper, be sure to choose the highest quality paper you can manage.  The paper quality will have a far greater impact on the final look and feel of your handmade bridal shower invitations than you may realize.

Choose the Right Font

If you are going to print your handmade shower invitations, be sure to take the time to select the right font color, style, and size.  The lettering on your invitation can make a great impact on setting the mood for your bridal shower.

Do a Few Trial Runs

After you have come up with what you think is the perfect font and design for your do-it-yourself shower invitations, print one off with regular printer paper.  This will help you make sure it has the look you are really after, without wasting your more expensive, high quality paper.  After you are sure your invitation is just perfect, go ahead and print them all off. 

Try Something New

Making your own bridal shower invitations is a great time to try something new.  Embossing your own bridal shower invitations can make them look classy and unique.  In addition, your guests will appreciate the time and effort it takes to create these cards.  To emboss your do-it-yourself bridal shower invitations, you will need to obtain an embossing heat tool, which will cost approximately $35 at a craft store.  This is a worthwhile investment because you will be able to use it for many different special occasions, including creating thank you notes, programs, and invitations.  You can also use an embossing heat tool with the hobby of scrapbooking (maybe you can put one together after the wedding!). 

You will also need embossing powder, which costs about $5 per bottle, in the colors you need.  An embossing inkpad, costing about $5, and stamps, which cost about $5-10 each, will also need to be purchased.

The stamp will serve as the image you will use on your do-it-yourself bridal shower invitations.  Therefore, you should pick out a couple that seem to fit within the theme of the shower or, if you wish, the theme of the wedding.  You may also simply choose a design or image that represents love, such as two intertwined hearts or a tulip design.  These stamps can also be used over and over and can go beyond just your bridal shower invitations.  In fact, you might choose to emboss the design or picture on the program at your wedding or on the menu cards at your reception.

The colored embossing powder you will use to create your invitations will actually go a long way.  Therefore, you might want to just stick to one or two colors in order to keep the cost down.  One or two bottles should be plenty to create all the cards you need.

The actual process of embossing is quite simple.  First, stamp the inkpad with the stamp you selected for your do-it-yourself bridal shower invitations.  Then, sprinkle some of your embossing powder over the stamped area.  Tap off the excess powder and let it fall onto another piece of plain paper.  The excess powder can be returned to its container by creasing the plain paper and using it as a funnel to pour the powder back in.  After the excess embossing powder has been removed, apply heat to the area by holding your embossing heat tool near to, but not directly on, the area.  Continue applying heat for several seconds until the embossing powder is melted into the image or design you desire. 

After you get good at this process, you can use different colors within the same design.  Or, you can choose to use a couple different designs.  The best part is that no two invitations will be exactly the same – making each one a truly unique gift to each of your guests!

 

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Of course the first thing on the invitation should be the bride to be or the couple’s names. This is some thing that the hostess may want to consult with the bride to be about. If the party is a women only party then the bride to be will probably just be the name listed on the invitation. If the party is for men and women then the hostess will probably want to include the bride to be and the groom to be on the invitations.

The date of the bridal shower should also be included. This is vital, as the guests will nee to plan for it and avoid other appointments or priorities. The date will also help the potential guest determine the weather at that particular time of year and they can plan travel times around winter weather or rainy weather conditions if it applies. Also if the guests are out of town or have to travel a long distance they may need to make flight reservations or other travel plans. They may also need to book a hotel room if they need to travel overnight.

Time of day that the shower is going to take place should be the next thing included on the invitation. This one is pretty logical. If it is not listed how are the guests supposed to know when to show up? Unless you want a bunch of phone calls questioning the time of the shower, include it on the invitation.

The address of the location that the bridal shower is going to held is another vital fact that should be listed on the invitations. This is like the time of the bridal shower, if it is not on the invitation how are people supposed to come? Also do not just list the name of the person who is having it at their home or do not just list the restaurant or any other place you may be hosting the party. Always list the complete street address including the city, state and zip code.

The name of the hostess along with a phone number where she can normally be reached should be included on the invitations. If the hostess can be reached at one number by day and another by night include both numbers and specify when to call each of them. If a potential guest has a question they will need contact the hostess.

If the hostess requests to be contacted by a certain date, notifying them who can attend, then the RSVP date and time should be included in the invitation. This is only necessary if this information is required for a bridal shower that may need reservations or catered.

Bridal shower theme should be included on the invitation if there is one. This will help the guest plan for a gift and clothing attire. If the hostess has designated a theme and would like particular gifts brought to the shower then she should include the gift suggestions on the invitation as well.

Other things you may want to include are the couple’s home decorating colors, a map to the location of the bridal shower, and where the bride has registered. Also remember that if the couple has made any special requests to include it on the invitation. Whatever you decide all of the above will save you time and energy during the planning stages by giving the most information to the potential guests. The guests will also appreciate a thorough invitation so that they can plan accordingly.

 

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Of course, some purists purse their lips at the idea of sending invitations through cyberspace, and in some cases many would agree.  For example is it appropriate to send a birthday party invitation via the Internet?  What about a Super Bowl party invitation?  Many agree that these occasions are somewhat informal and therefore an electronic invitation truly is all that is required.  Yet what about the more formal occasion of a bridal shower?  Should bridal shower invites be emailed or sent via snail mail?

Anyone who routinely marks down to eschew procrastination on the annual New Years resolution list will most likely applaud the notion of sending the invites via email.  After all, if the party is the day after tomorrow, it is indeed a bit too late to still send out anything via the post office.  On the other hand, if the party is still a week away or perhaps even further on the horizon, would the formality of the occasion not warrant a handwritten card? Traditionalists have long since felt that bridal shower invitations quite often become keepsakes for the bride and groom, and perhaps also for the guests, and so it is much more appropriate to have the tangible form of invitation rather than simply the electronic message.  At the same time, some bridal shower organizers go through great lengths to hand make beautifully crafted cards, envelopes, and return envelopes, and with the help of rubber stamps, glue, some simple craft supplies, and a lot of time and patience send out these small masterpieces to friends and family who love to receive them. 

Obviously there is no good answer.  By way of suggestion, here are some times that it appears to be best to send out e-mailed invitations:

If you have procrastinated with your paper invitations and the party is only a few short days away, don’t wait any longer but send out an e-mail blitz to get as many friends and family members informed as possible.

If the bride and groom are not much concerned with tradition, but do not really care about the niceties of mailed versus e-mailed invitations, go ahead and e-mail them.

If the bride is a cyber junkie, go ahead and e-mail them.  This would be right up her ally!

If one or more of the guest to be have specifically requested to receive an e-mailed invitation, please be sure to honor that request.  They might not be looking for a piece of snail mail, and so your beautifully crafted invite may get stuck between a few pieces of junk mail.

If the bride and groom shy away from the traditional trappings of a wedding ceremony, and are instead modernizing the whole experience, then it might also be appropriate to modernize the bridal shower experience.

Obviously, for the majority of brides and grooms as well as their friends and families, handwritten and mailed invitations are still the best way to go.  Many will hold on to those little written gems and put them in scrap books and photo albums, where they will be treasured for years and quite possibly decades to come.

 

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Why buy online? There are a lot of reasons but a few are very important. One of the biggest reasons buying bridal shower invitations online is convenience. How many other things do you purchase online? This should be no different. You can browse hundreds of invitations from your home. There are sites that let you preview the inside, outside and back of the invitations. Online invitation vendors also may offer different papers, ink and envelopes for your convenience. Buying bridal shower invitations online can also save you money. Often the websites are selling the invitations at wholesale prices. Also they can offer the invitations at a reduced cost because the company’s overhead to run an online store is much cheaper than stocking a store and hiring staff to run a retail store. If you are purchasing a lot of invitations they will also probably offer a bulk discount or package deals if you purchase envelopes and other invitation accompaniments, such as seals and RSVP cards.

Purchasing bridal shower invitations online is very simple. The first step would be to do a simple search. You can simply search for keywords, such as, bridal shower invitations or bridal shower invites. If you have a specific theme for the shower you could do a search for the theme, for example, if you are hosting a book or reading theme bridal shower you could search for keywords like, book bridal shower. Of course searching for a specific themed shower invitation can be harder for some themes. The Internet has so many options though that I believe there is the perfect invite for everyone’s needs. You can also request samples to be mailed to you on most sites. This allows you to see the invitation in person rather than on a screen. After you find the invitation you need you then need to read the site’s purchasing terms, make sure to check and see if they offer any specials for large orders or if you buy something else. After reading all the fine print you can then go ahead and make your purchase. The concept of buying online can seem scary to someone who has never done it before but it is just as safe as buying anywhere else. Most sites offer credit card payments and some even accept checks electronically.

The variety of bridal shower invitations offered online is tremendous! One may feel overwhelmed with the choices. This is a good thing though as you can shop around until you are happy. A convenient thing about shopping online also is the ability to send a link to the bride or any other person involved in the planning of the shower. The ability to preview the invitations online is great and some sites even give you the opportunity to customized the bridal shower invitation and preview it instantly. You can change things such as color of the text to the pictures on the invitations. The option of customizing online is a great advantage that you can get buying online that you cannot get by buying at a local card store. If a local place offers custom invitations they will more than likely charge a lot more than the online sites.

In conclusion buying bridal shower invitations online is a very good idea. Do not think that browsing through all of the online options is time consuming. You must keep in mind how much time it will take to drive to an from a store and also the time it will take if you do nit find what you want at one store and have to go shopping for an entire day. Sometimes one day of shopping will still leave you empty handed! So do not discount online bridal shower invitations!

 

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