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Bridal showers are one of the most fun parts of planning a wedding.  Planning a bridal shower can also be fun and can be done on a limited budget if you are resourceful.  While the trend seems to be hosting the shower at a venue such as a restaurant, why not consider a bridal shower at home.  It is less expensive, more intimate and gives you more options as to your menu.

While it is supposedly a faux pas to have the mother of the bride plan the bridal shower, my daughter’s bridesmaids enlisted my help. I offered to host it in our home and they were thrilled.  We all talked and decided on a rather unconventional approach. We would do a co-ed, or as more commonly known – a “Jack and Jill” shower.    The first thing I suggested was to come up with a theme.  Using a theme for any celebration makes it easier to plan.  It’s kind of like a GPS for your plans.  It will help to give you ideas for everything from the invitations, to the menu, activities and even the favors. Since they wanted to do it in May, I suggested a Kentucky Derby theme and we did it on Derby Saturday. 

For our menu, we kept it simple – we made assorted sandwiches, salads, fruits and pastas…as if you were on the racetrack sidelines picnicking. We had lemonade, iced tea and beer, wine and fresh fruit sangria in a punchbowl.  For desserts we made dozens of mini-cupcakes and displayed them on cupcake stands. We added chocolate covered strawberries, homemade cookies and cake ball desserts. If you have never eaten cake ball desserts,  you are in for a treat. Small bite sized nuggets of cake and frosting, dipped in melted chocolate. We used the chocolate for candy molding and did a rainbow of colors.

I always love to include a game at our own family celebrations so we came up with a Derby Dollars guessing game.  The game gathered everyone together to watch the race… so fun! Even those who knew nothing about horse racing got into the action.

The final gathering was to watch both the bride and groom open their lovely gifts.  It was a beautiful celebration filled with all the people they both love so much. Best of all, this whole showers cost pennies in comparison to hosting it out of the house.  Many of these ideas would be perfect for a more traditional bridal shower with a garden or tea party theme… so let your creative juices flow and you can plan a beautiful bridal shower on a limited budget.   You can see the fun invitations, the cake ball dessert recipe and the creative favors we made as we planned this bridal shower at  Celebration Ideas Online.

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Source by Carol Eiseman