Being a hostess can be fun. In the words of my dear friend Amy, the goal of any party is for the hostess to walk in and have fun, and the details to take care of themselves. This is going to happen only with careful planning, which is something you have done as you worked through this book.
As hostess, you not only want to have fun, you want to make sure your bride has lots and lots of fun, and your guests do, too. You want it to be enjoyable, comfortable, and memorable. This is easy. You just have to work from the opposite perspective: The deal is, you have to make sure you don’t make anyone feel uncomfortable.
If you’ve chosen a theme from this book, chances are there’s a shower game that’s perfect for it, and it was mentioned in the theme description. There may be other games that would be perfect for the type of girls you and your bride are.
If anyone in your set can write, sing, dance, or act, or if anyone should have been a comedian and missed her calling, why not put together these talented folks and create a special ten- or fifteen-minute skit for the shower? Steal ideas from Letterman, Leno, or Raphael, or make up something totally on your own.
Have everyone bring a photo of the bride or groom or themselves with her. Assemble them into a montage. Write on the back where each one was taken and the memory associated with it. Or collect written memories and put them in a memory book for the bride, with or without the pictures.
Working in a circle, have everyone tell how they first met the bride, or tell a funny story about their experiences with her.
Is your bride so annoyingly besotted by her beloved she’s driving everyone nuts? Try this game every time she mentions his name or anyone says a different word, like “work” or “cat.” Choose a word that no one is allowed to say at the party. Before the party, select a bunch of really cheesy segments from movies, erotica books, or paperback romances. As in: “Her perky breasts heaved at the sight of him. Oh, when would she feel the weight of his tawny fingers on her smooth young skin? Cybil noted that her nipples were hardening under her shirt. Would Jim notice? Would he care?” (You could also make them up, like I just did.)
Anytime someone mentions the groom’s name, or some other forbidden word, he or she has to pull one of these selections. Type them on sheets of paper and put them into a big bag or box. The guest has to read it aloud, with inflection. Hysterical!
Having a “This Is Your Life!” shower would be loads of fun if your guests include family and friends who may not know each other. Get each of your guests who RSVPs to tell you their favorite anecdote about the bride. Ask for pictures. Call her mom and get background information such as when she was born, the type of labor mom had, and so forth.
If you’ve got dramatic flair, tape-record a baby crying as your intro, with “It’s a girl!” as a voice-over. Continue with a “Jennifer Sexton—(drum roll)—This is your life!” Then, emcee a wonderful journey through the bride’s life. To make it even more fun, try to invite her best friend from out of town (high school) whom she hasn’t talked to in years, or the bride’s sister from Georgia who told her she couldn’t make it, or anyone else you think your bride would go nuts to see. If you cannot get a relative or an old friend, why not hire her favorite author (Authors eat up this type of chance to be a big star! You’ll have to pay airfare, though, and a night’s lodging.) Try getting her favorite English teacher from grammar school, someone like that. Do some investigating to find out whom she’d most love to see. Put them up at your house if you have to.
If you are going to do this, play it not more than thirty minutes into the shower, so the surprise guest gets to enjoy the party, too, and not just wait in the wings, and so that the late guests (there are always a few) won’t miss the fun.
Talent you might hire for your shower could include:
Harpist
Violinist
Clown
Magician
Belly dancer
Masseuse
Manicurist
Dancer
Stripper
Pianist
Mime
Actor
Author
Psychic
Astrologer
Palm reader
Comedian
Artist
I’m partial to this idea for a number of reasons. To find a local author, call your biggest local bookstore and ask if they know someone. Call the local branch of PEN if you are in a big city, or look under “Publisher’s Representatives” or “Literary Agents” in the Yellow Pages. These people probably know someone. Short of that, call the local library. There’s bound to be someone. Get this person in to read a bit from their book, offer them some cake. If you want them to do it for free, tell them you’ll put the book on display and/or let them sell copies afterward. Authors are natural-born hams for the most part, especially those who write on these topics. And the best part? You get an amusing diversion for free!
What an incredibly trendy and fun twist to your shower! If you don’t know anyone who does this kind of thing, ask around! One of your friends is bound to be able to give you a recommendation. After you get the recommendation, go visit this person yourself! Yep, get a reading. See what you think about them. Then ask them if they would be willing to do the shower. Chances are strong the answer will be yes, as most of these professionals don’t make a lot of money. Write up a short contract that says, “Zelda the Magnificent will attend a wedding shower at (location) on (date, time) and perform readings for all who wish it, not to exceed (number of) people. In deference to this contract, I make a deposit of $75 (I wouldn’t put down more than that!) toward this event, the balance of $(agreed-on remainder) to be paid at the completion of the party.”
Have her and you sign it. Don’t take chances. My experience with the majority of these professionals is they spend a lot of time living in other universes and aren’t always great about contracts and things. Call a few days before and also the day of the shower to be sure.
Make sure you set up a private room for Zelda to do the readings in, and have your guests pencil in the time of their reading.
From Mae West to Abe Lincoln to Barbara Walters to the president, good and bad impersonators are everywhere. Think of all the Saturday Night Live skits you’ve seen! An impersonator may be just the right touch for your event. To hire one, call a local speakers’ bureau, or you can find any impersonator you want by calling ForthWrite Speakers Bureau (my agent’s company) in Malibu, California, at 310-457-5785. The impersonator can show up in person, or just do it over the phone.
While this may be the domain of the bachelorette party, you might choose to do it at the shower, assuming you won’t freak out any of the guests. How do you find the right guy? First, look in the Yellow Pages under “Dancers.” (Some Classifieds sections will offer this, too.) Call no less than six places—the ones with the half-page Yellow Pages ads will be more expensive than the one with the fine print that says, “Joe’s Male Strippers and TV Repair Shop.” Make a selection.
If the person who answers the phone is a jerk, or rude, find another place to call. Get prices from six people. Tell them your party date, what the event is, and ask what they provide. (Own music? More than ten minutes of dancing? Any interaction with the guest of honor?)
Narrow it down to two or three, and go see the guys who will actually be stripping/dancing. From there, you can probably make a good choice all by yourself. Remember to confirm his engagement a few days before the party.
Hiring someone to entertain your bride and your guests at the party is always fun, although it may be a bit pricey. If you don’t know anyone who will give you a cut-rate or who would do it for free because they are a friend, you’ll have to hire someone.
First, figure out what would work best for your location and the type of guests you are having and when you are having the shower. Then, look in the Yellow Pages under the appropriate word. (Some newspapers’ Classifieds sections might offer help, too.) Call no less than six places—the ones with the half-page Yellow Pages ads will be more expensive than the one with the fine print that says, “Margie’s Trained Animal Act and Hair Salon.” Make a selection.
If the person who answers the phone is a jerk, or rude, find another place to call. Get prices from six people. Tell them your party date, what the event is, and ask what they provide for your money. Ask them to send you a brochure and a referral list. I might hire someone who didn’t have a brochure (probably because they’d be cheaper), but I would NEVER hire someone who couldn’t provide me with a list of satisfied customers!
Narrow it down to two or three, and go see the performer live. Ask them if you can crash their next gig for ten minutes, or if you can have a demo tape, or whatever. Somehow, make sure they can do what they are promising and that you aren’t the first person who is buying from them. Not much is worse than a really bad entertainer. Your guests will be trapped!
From there, you can probably make a good choice all by yourself. It’s customary to put 50 percent down to hold the date. Remember to confirm the engagement a few days before the party. If they don’t show, have a backup of one of the games in this book—and get your money back.
It wouldn’t be totally out of place to organize your wedding shower around something interesting, like a group dancing lesson. You could drag everyone down to the local Arthur Murray studio (after the cake and presents) and let them all learn how to cha-cha. Make sure your bride will be playing cha-cha music at the reception!
Otherwise, you could take them all to a water park, a nightclub, a miniature-golf course, or any other diversion that your bride would love and the guests might enjoy, too. Some of these places might have a room for special events like yours—you could hold the whole thing right there!
A piñata is a hollow papier-mâché object, often made to look like a person or animal. You can get them at the party store, or if you live in a neighborhood with a Hispanic section, you can buy a better one there for probably 1/3 what you’d pay at the party store.
The deal with piñatas, which are de rigueur at kid’s parties, is that they are fun. The adults wistfully watch kids at kids’ parties, so why not make one for your adults’ party?
The piñata is filled with wrapped candy and/or little surprises. You need not fill the whole thing, just at least half. The opening is sealed (usually with Elmer’s glue!) and the piñata is hung at the end of a long rope. The rope is then slung over a tree, creating a sort of pulley with the piñata on one end. When the rope is pulled, the piñata slides up and down in space and wiggles around. You will want to have someone managing the rope-pulling during this game.
When the guests are ready, you line them up shortest to tallest. You blindfold the first one and give her a baseball bat. She’s supposed to hit the moving piñata and burst it open, spilling the contents. She gets three swings. If she doesn’t crack open the swaying piñata, the bat and blindfold go to the next woman. And so on.
Don’t play this game if you have men at your shower—they get way too competitive and nutty. But women might think it’s fun. When the thing is finally hit hard enough to crack open, the candy/small gift items/tiny perfume samples, whatever you filled it with, spill out and the idea is everyone is supposed to scramble for the contents.
Getting grown women to scramble for the contents might be a little hard, so before the game, announce you’ve put a special copper penny into one candy wrapper and whoever finds it wins … a prize? An all-expense-paid lunch for two with the bride? Your choice!
Games can be loads of fun at parties! They break the ice, heat up the conversation, and get guests actively involved. There are games obviously related to the party theme, and then there are traditional shower games.
Some games include:
Pin the Boutonniere on the Groom: In this game you use a big picture of the groom (instead of a donkey). Don’t think too long about the double entendre of that one! Using a blown-up photo of the groom, blindfold the guests, and they try to pin a paper or silk flower onto his left lapel.
Wedding Trivial Pursuit: The bride supplies you with trivia about her dating experience. Use a Trivial Pursuit board you have modified and question cards made by you from index cards.
Bridal Bloopers: Someone writes down the bride’s words as she opens her gifts at the shower. “Oh, it’s so pretty!” “I’ve always wanted one of these!” and so on. Then someone reads them back in a list under the heading: “What Jennifer will say on her wedding night.” This traditional party game is hilarious!
Wedding Shower Jeopardy: The hostess puts together a bunch of trivia answers about the bride and groom. Then ask the guests to phrase the questions. Things like, Answer: “The waiter spilled water on the table.” Question: “What happened on Brittany and Jeff’s first date?”
Shower Charades: Collect a bunch of wedding and marriage axioms or quotes or old traditions (like “something old, something new …”). Write them on bits of paper. Guests choose them from a white high-heeled shoe or a bridesmaid’s hat or something like that. Separated into two teams, one player acts out the phrase for their team members so they can guess the phrase.
Bridal Herstory: You write out a humorous story, in advance of the shower, preferably on one of those large newsprint flip charts. (They cost about $2 at the arts and crafts store.) You leave blanks for some of the nouns, verbs, and adjectives. At the party, you fill in the story with the words guests call out to you to create a funny story about the bride and groom.
Lucky Girl: On the bottom of the paper cups in which beverages will be served, write the bride’s name, groom’s name, and other wedding-related words (veil, gown, bouquet, etc.). Put all the words on matching slips of paper. The bride picks one slip of paper out of a hat or jar during the party. Whoever has that particular word on the bottom of her cup wins a small prize.
A raffle or two can be lots of fun at a shower. Pick out one or two funny, cute, or pretty prizes, usually not exceeding $20 each in cost. You can also collect some trivial prizes—plastic blow horns and funny party hats. Make some sort of a system whereby guests can win. Like, the guest whose slice of cake has a thimble in it (and who doesn’t choke on it!) gets a prize. Or write numbers on the bottom of the cups, and have the bride draw a number from a hat. The guest with that number on her cup wins a prize.
Or, make it be based on something besides luck. Who knows the bride’s grandma’s native country? Who knows the groom’s middle name? Or give prizes to the winners of the games we’ve just talked about.
This might take a bit of pluck, but you certainly have that by now! To get prizes donated, decide what you want. A buy-one-get-one-free dinner from a local restaurant? A free soda with a to-go lunch order from the deli on the corner? A free dozen donuts? Ten dollars off from the lingerie store? All you gotta do is call a couple of small, independent retailers in your area and you’ll have prizes coming out of your ears!
Pitch it like this, in person, to the manager or owner: “Hi, my name is Gloria. I’m hosting a party for one of my friends who is getting married. We’ll be having about twenty local women. I’ve always loved your corned-beef-and-peanut-butter-on-rye sandwiches here, so I was thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if you offered a free one to someone who wins one of the party games?’ You’d come to the attention of all twenty women, and maybe expand a little business. Who knows? Whoever wins the CB&PB on rye might get as addicted as I am and become a regular. Whaddya say?”
They’ll either say Yes!, Well, how about a free Coke if they buy the sandwich instead, or No, honey, but here’s a french fry for your troubles. It’s easy! When s/he says yes, pull out the preprinted gift certificate (their store’s name nicely preprinted with the address) and write on the blank line what they are providing. Have them sign it and give it an expiration date (six months is perfect). Great! Now you have a valuable prize that didn’t cost you more than a few pennies!
Or, think of which attendees have their own businesses and get them to donate something. Retail stores especially love this kind of opportunity.
In summary of all these activities, themes, games, party ideas, raffles, and what not, it really is about your girlfriend who’s getting married. It’s about celebrating and supporting her choice, and making her feel like she has a team of loving friends supporting her and sharing in her bliss.
If you want to, just put on some nice music, gather a group of friends, and let them eat cake!