A bridal shower is a fun opportunity for friends and family to celebrate the bride-to-be. Games and activities can add to the fun. Here are four unique bridal shower games for a shower she’ll always remember.
Memory Game. This can be a good ice breaker for a bridal shower. When all the guests are gathered, tell them they are going to play a memory game. Then have the bride, her mother or sister come in with a tray on which are 10 or 12 related items (kitchen utensils, personal care products, etc). She should walk slowly around the room, letting each guest see what is on the tray and then leave. Now give each guest a piece of paper and pen and ask her to write down what the bride, her mother or sister was wearing. This is sure to get a reaction from everyone as they struggle to remember what they weren’t paying any attention to. The winner is the one with the most correct answers.
Who Am I? This unique bridal shower game is a good ice breaker, especially if some guests don’t know each other. Before the guests arrive, write down the names of famous romantic couples on pieces of paper (one name on each paper). Couples can be from literature (Romeo and Juliet), history (Antony and Cleopatra), show business (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), and so on. Fold each paper and put it in a bowl. As each guest arrives, have them choose a paper without looking at what is written on it. Pin the paper on their back, with the name showing. Once everyone has arrived, they should go around the room and ask yes and no answers (Am I a celebrity? Am I still alive? Am I a real person?) about their “identity” in an effort to guess the name on their back. Once they correctly identify the name, they need to find their romantic partner. The first one to find her match wins.
How Well Does the Bride Know the Groom? Before the bridal shower, ask the groom the answers 20 to 25 personal questions about himself. Questions might be such things as what was his first car, what was the name of his first pet, who first kissed him, what was his favorite subject in high school. Write down each question on a piece of paper and place them in a basket. Before starting the game, ask each guest to say how many questions she thinks the bride will get right. Then have each guest in turn choose a slip of paper from the basket and read the question to the bride. The guest who correctly guesses how many answers the bride gets right wins a small prize. A variation on this is to include questions about the bridesmaids, such as which bridesmaid has a rose tattoo, which bridesmaid’s first boyfriend was named Victor and so on. Another variation is to have the bride put a piece of bubble gum in her mouth each time she gets a question wrong.
Good Marriage Advice for the Bride. This is a fun and unique bridal shower game because everyone at the shower can be involved in a direct and even useful manner and it can generate some very interesting conversation. Give each guest a small card and ask her to write her marriage advice to the bride on it. The advice can be serious or funny or both. Ideally it should be based on experience. Let the bride read each piece of advice to the group and guess who wrote it. In the end, have each guest sign the card with her advice on it and give the bride the cards as a memento (provide a pretty box in which she can store them). Purchase small note cards on which the guests can write their advice or you can obtain postcards made especially for this purpose at www.badabadabride.com. A variation on this is to take a Polaroid picture of each guest as she arrives, put her photo on a page in a blank book and have her write her advice on the page next to her picture. Another variation of the advice theme is Recipe Advice for the Bride: ask each guest to write her favorite recipe on a recipe card and bring it to the shower for the bride. Give the recipe cards to her in a pretty box.
Sources:
www.badabadabride.com, Notes of Advice for New Brides
www.bridalshower.com, Bridal Shower.com/games and planning for wedding showers
weddings.about.com, Bridal Shower Games, Ice Breakers and Activities
