Can’t bear to play another single clothespin or dress-the-bride-in-toilet-paper game? Look no further, ladies; your bride will love you for the sophisticated over-the-top bridal shower you throw her with LWP’s help. Here are a few shower suggestions to get your creative juices flowing; then take them to another level by adding your own personal touches.

Pretty in Pink…or Silver…or Orange
Play things up with color. This scheme can be subtle and sophisticated or wild and over the top, depending on what colors you use and how you use them. For a sophisticated shower, you might choose a color such as light blue, lavender, white, or silver, then do anything and everything you can in that color. Serve petit fours with silver dragees and silver foil topped cookies on a silver plate. Give favors of silver Jordan almonds or a silver mint julep cup to the guests. For silver, in particular, you might even ask the guests to bring a piece of silver if the bride has registered for such things.

Is the bride a little less conventional and more on the adventuresome side? Maybe your bride’s favorite colors are hot pink and orange. Send out wild and creative invitations; serve foods like mangos and cupcakes sprinkled with pink and orange candies; give pink brag books as favors or brightly packaged lotions or soaps for prizes. Drape a chandelier with pink and orange tulle and place bright candles all around the room. You might even ask the guests to join in the fun by bringing a gift in the selected color, or one wrapped in that color of paper.

Memories are Forever
Growing in popularity are showers centered on memory keeping, or scrapbooking specifically. Consider asking each guest to bring a photo of herself and the bride to the shower, then place it in an album or scrapbook alongside a photo of them together at the shower. Send precut cards in the invitations or have them available at the party for guests to write the bride a note of advice, a favorite memory with her, or a favorite recipe to wow her new husband. Put those in the album with the photos, along with anything else that might be memorable to the bride.

For refreshments, ask the mother of the bride what her daughter’s favorite desserts or foods were as a child, or serve cookies with a childhood photo of the bride on them in edible ink, available at many fine bakeries. Keep the memories theme in mind as you decorate, as well. All around the room, position framed photos of the bride and her guests in earlier days; have a display of the bride’s photos in years gone by.

If you or one of your other hostesses is an exceptional photographer, consider doing a small photo shoot at the beginning of the shower, taking a photo of each guest with the bride. During the shower, run out (or send a spouse) to a one-hour developer and have the photos ready to give away by the end of the shower. Make the favors extra special by giving the pictures in a mini album or picture frame.

Boys Allowed
Showers aren’t just for the bride anymore. Consider a coed shower, one for the bride and the groom, where no one is left out. This is an especially good idea if the bride and groom will wed in a different state or country, since few of their friends will be able to attend and celebrate with them on their big day. Or if the shower is held in the groom’s or bride’s hometown, where no one knows the “significant other,” it offers an opportunity for the guests to get to know the other half of the couple better before the wedding. This type of shower is especially beneficial, as well, if the bride or groom has close friends or family of the opposite gender who may wish to attend.

At a coed shower, lingerie is obviously out as a gift. Guests may want to bring a single gift for both the bride and the groom, or the ladies may want to bring a gift for the bride and the men a gift for the groom. You might consider having all the men bring a tool for the groom, and have a tool box at the shower for him to fill with the gifts. Ask the women to bring potpourri, bath products, candles, and other romantic and feminine gifts, and fill a pretty basket or hatbox with the bride’s gifts.

Serve the couple’s favorite foods or combine “manly” with dainty, serving hot wings or ribs for dinner, followed for dessert by delicate cookies or mini cakes with tea or coffee in fancy cups. Play up the differences between the way men and women throw parties, playing games with “boys against girls.” Give your fun-loving partygoers favors at the end of the evening that best suit their gender. Give the men a small screwdriver or pocketknife and the ladies a candle or lotion.

A Trip Away from Home
Is the bride from another country, or does she like to travel? Center your shower plans around a favorite place that the bride is always talking about. Perhaps she was an Italian major in college; send out invitations in English and Italian, the texts side by side, and serve the ladies Italian cuisine such as bruschetta and antipasta, followed by cannolis and Italian gelato for dessert. Many espresso shops rent out a professional espresso maker for events, and some even hire out one of their baristas to serve up the delectable brew.

If the couple is going to France on their honeymoon, give the bride a preview of the country by serving French pastries and coffee, playing French music, and printing the invitations and any written games in both French and English. Serve French wine with cheeses from different provinces for a light meal, or go all out and serve filet mignon for dinner. Decorate with French candies in candy jars to give the impression of a French candy shop, or lavishly decorate the room with flowers to evoke a feeling of standing in a flower market in Paris. Print out place cards for your guests in French, along with small labels for each of the foods and desserts.

Whatever the country, a fun game might be a quiz of quotes from romantic movies that take place in the featured nation, such as French Kiss, Forget Paris, or Sabrina for France; select quotes from Italian favorites such as Roman Holiday, Only You, or Life is Beautiful. Or test your friends’ knowledge of the language with a “match the foreign word with the English” game.

For French favors, give your guests an individually wrapped pastry, or put small silver scoops into the candy jars and let your guests fill cone-shaped paper candy bags with their choice of candy. For an Italian theme, give guests small Italian theater masks, Italian pastries, fun shaped pastas found at gourmet and specialty shops, or a small piece of Italian pottery.

Think Outside the Box…or House
Contrary to popular belief, bridal showers do not have to take place in someone’s living room or backyard. An elegant shower may be best held in a dainty tea house, where you can experience England’s “high tea” hour. Or perhaps there is a local restaurant the bride has always wanted to try. This takes much of the preparation time off of your hands and places it into the hands of professionals. Several venues tailored to the creative side, such as pottery shops or scrapbooking stores, are also excellent selections for crafty brides. Many allow you to bring in your own refreshments and will set aside space for your entourage. You may want to have each guest paint a tile to go around a mirror or a piece that will make up a tea set to display at the pottery painting shops. At the scrapbooking store, have each guest do a page or two in a “Our First Year” album, complete with all but the photos, which the bride can add as the events occur. The options available are endless.
When planning the perfect shower for a bride, remember the guests as well as you make your plans. Creating something that will be both memorable and comfortable for everyone is crucial. If you intend to invite every female the bride has ever met, you may want to stay away from personal or lingerie showers, as those showers are most comfortable and fun when there are only a few, more close-knit, friends in attendance. A coed party takes extra care in planning to ensure that both genders will enjoy themselves and that no one can count the times the groom rolls his eyes in an evening. Or you may remember that the bride had mentioned in the past a shower that she’d enjoyed, so perhaps expounding on that idea may be ideal for her. It all comes down to you and the bride. Only you, as a close friend and as a party planner extraordinaire, know what will best suit the bride and all those involved. Happy showering!