Fun, Cheap, or Free Bridal Shower Ideas

I recently got an email from McKensie, a reader friend who needs some bridal shower ideas. I have a few, but here is your opportunity to share your ideas also!

Here is what she said:

Hi-

I just recently found your blog and I will be a follower! 🙂 I am contacting you today to ask you about bridal showers. My sister is getting married in February and we are looking for ideas. Her colors will be teal, purple, salmon and black. We would like to use those in some way if possible. If you would point me in the right direction on where to start we would really appreciate it. We dont really want to play games, we want more of an open house with yummy food, cute decorations, and great conversations! Can you help us a little????

Thanks a bunch!

McKensie

Well McKensie, I’m happy to help!

I have more experience in throwing baby showers than with bridal showers, but hey…a shower is a shower…right?! 🙂

Here are a few ideas I have:

INVITATIONS

First of all, I always recommend making custom invitations. That way you can have the exact colors and style you want.

Click HERE for my tutorial on how to make your own digital invites for free.

Google “shower invitation” and go to images to get TONS of ideas for cute invitations. If you are anything like me, seeing an example really helps!

Etsy is another good resource for unique, custom invites that you don’t have to do yourself! My good friends over at Plum Street Prints have amazing designs and they will make anything you want. They could totally design your invitations for a great deal!

I found this company on Pinterest that has lots of free templates you can use.

To keep costs down, send the invitation out digitally via email or facebook. You may have to mail a few to people who aren’t on facebook, but it will save you a ton of money on stamps, envelopes, and printing.

You can take advantage of free print offers from sites like Snapfish and Shutterfly, and print your invites as 4×6 or 5×7 pictures. Glue them to cute cardstock or scrapbook paper and you have custom invites for FREE! You can see these free print offers on our coupon page.

To keep costs even lower, print the invite on cute paper (you can buy cute printer paper, or just use scrapbook paper), keep it simple, and simply dress it up with a bit of ribbon, glitter, or other embellishments. Remember to use coupons at the craft stores!!! Joanne Fabrics takes competitors’ coupons so print out Hancock, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, and Joanne’s coupons from our coupons & deals page and take them all!

Be sure to send your invitations out at least 4 weeks in advance, and send a reminder email 1 week in advance.

Be sure to ask for an RSVP so you can have a count for food and party favors. I like to put text, call, and email as RSVP options.

DECORATIONS

Personally, this is my favorite part!

One thing I’ve learned is that you DON’T have to pay a lot to have amazing decor. Make most of it yourself, and stick with the stuff that can be reused!

It sounds like you already have a color theme of teal, purple, salmon, and black. Those might be challenging to work with, so just remember to always GET CREATIVE! Here are some decor ideas that I thought were cute:

These are easy and fun, you can reuse them again and again, and you can customize the colors! Use tissue paper or crepe paper to get the look you want.

And hey, she could even use these at her wedding! Click HERE to see how to do them.

Make a centerpiece of her soon-to-be last name by doing:

or you could do giant initials like this:

I love hanging lanterns because you can reuse them, they look fancy, and it doesn’t take many of them to really spice up a party!

Here are some other fun ideas I found on Pinterest:

FOOD

I like that they use real napkins, silverware, and plates for this party in this picture. I thought this was a cute way to lay out napkins and silverware. I also like how simple and clean the table looks. You don’t need much!

I thought this was a pretty way to display vegetable sticks.

At one of the showers I did, a friend did the food. She did lots of different kinds of dips and it was delish! You don’t necessarily have to serve a full meal, depending on what time your shower is at.

For the other shower I did lots of kinds of salads. Allrecipes.com is my go-to!…
Or you can see some of my favorite recipes HERE.
I have some other fun recipe ideas on pinterest like this one:

Since you will be doing a winter shower, a soup bar or baked potato bar is always fun, cheap, yummy, and easy.

Have multiple pots of soup and different types of bread,
or have lots of baked potatoes and tons of bowls of different kinds of toppings.

Keep the food cheap and simple, but just dress it up a little!

If you are going to have bread or rolls, make flavored butter! Strawberry, honey, lemon, get creative!

Dipped pretzel rods are fancy-looking, but SO EASY and so yummy! They are also a non-messy dessert for people to enjoy. You can even wrap some in ribbon and have them as the take-home gift.

Click HERE for how to make these,

and click HERE for this example.

PARTY FAVORS & GAMES

You mentioned you don’t want to do games, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a fun activity or two! Just have them lying around, or in a basket for people to grab when they come in. Having a simple activity or two can give people “something to do”…especially if they don’t know many people at the shower.

One idea I loved was to make your own scratch cards. You could have one big winner, or multiple small winners. Either way, it’s memorable, fun, and creative!

Another activity you could do is to have question cards that people can answer. At the end you can have a prize for whoever guesses the most correctly. It’s a fun conversation starter, and helps the guests get to know the bride/groom better!

Single wrap cute decorated cookies, muffins, mini bread loaves, cupcakes, or dessert bars for a cheap and cute take-home gift.

Make little candy bags as take-home gifts. Hang them on a board like the picture, or leave them in a basket for people to take on their way out.

RING POPS! These are so fun at bridal showers. You can get a bag of 4 or 5 of them at the Dollar Store. Wrap them cute as a take-home gift, or have them laying out on the table as a treat.