38 Bridal Shower Themes for Every Type of Bride & Couple

When it comes to shower ideas, it doesn’t get much more classic than brunch. This theme works great for any time of the year—if you’re hosting during the warmer months, you can throw a beautiful outdoor shower with tables in a backyard or garden, and during cooler times of the year, you can rent out private space at one of the bride or groom’s favorite brunch spots. Either way, opt for self-serve drink and food stations for a more casual and fluid feel to the party, and make attire fun by asking everyone to wear colorful patterns or florals.

• Decor ideas: Whether you’re hosting outside or inside, adding some greenery and florals to your space for decoration is a nice touch. If you have food and drink stations outside, frame the signs for each with these natural elements. At a more formal sit-down inside, weave greenery such as a eucalyptus garland or colored florals down the table.
• Drink ideas: Set up a DIY bubbly bar so guests can make their own delicious drinks. An added bonus? Drink stations can double as decor if you lay out cute glassware, drink toppers, and floral arrangements.
• Favor ideas: Package up mini bottles of champagne or rosé with a custom label for each guest that has the guest of honor’s name on it, their wedding date, and a thank you to the guest for coming to the shower.

If the couple is refined, an elegant afternoon tea party is the perfect way to celebrate. Whether you host the event in a tea house, a backyard garden setting, or indoors, shower ideas like this one can easily become an event fit for royalty. Ask attendees to wear dresses or don hats for a tea time that might even have a boozy twist to it.

• Drink ideas: If you’re looking to spice it up a little, take a twist on traditional afternoon tea by making some of them “spiked”. These recipes are a fun way to toast your pals (and you can always leave some teas of the non-alcoholic variety, as well).
• Food ideas: Tea sandwiches are a must! Provide an assortment of sandwich combinations like ham and cheese, smoked salmon and egg, and cream cheese topped with sliced strawberries and honey. Other menu items could include a variety of crostini, deviled eggs, mini scones, muffins, and tarts from their favorite bakery.
• Favor ideas: Set up a self-serve station with jars of loose-leaf teas, scoops, and glassine bags or small tins so guests can make their own tea blends to enjoy at home.

Rustic-themed weddings have been growing in popularity over the last decade, so it only makes sense to consider a rustic shower theme as well. If weather permits, go for an outdoor shower where you can incorporate hay, exposed wood tables, and chalkboard signage directing guests into the venue. For added fun, suggested attire could include funky vintage dresses with cowboy boots.

• Decor ideas: Use burlap to decorate mason jar vases, old suitcases and crates at varying heights to display desserts, and votive candles where safe for extra whimsy.
• Food ideas: Consider a waffle bar, a candied apple station, or tiers of mini pies and tarts.
• Drink ideas: Serve up sweet tea, lemonade, and a bowl of their favorite cocktail mixed ahead of time, which drinks can be ladled out of.

Traditionally, bridal showers were an opportunity to get the bride-to-be ready for her new life as a wife, and in a time when most couples did not live together before marriage, this included kitting out her kitchen. Today, bridal showers aren’t usually about ensuring the bride has everything she needs for married life, but a kitchen-themed shower can still be a fun way to nod to the history of bridal showers, especially if the bride you’re celebrating loves to cook. Have guests bring recipe cards and put them in a new recipe box upon arrival, and let them know to come ready to help pitch in making the meal! If possible, encourage guests to purchase kitchen-specific registry items as gifts if they’re going to bring something to stick with the theme.

• Decor ideas: Use cookbooks as centerpieces, or common kitchen items such as cheese graters and mixing bowls full of floating flowers.
• Food ideas: Italian recipes can be perfect for making together as a group. Roll out and cut pasta, fold ravioli, or construct homemade pizzas from scratch. One group can even be in charge of preparing the salad. It only seems fitting to sip on some Italian wines during the process, too!
• Favor ideas: Cooking-themed favors such as whisks or dish towels will make for practical parting gifts. You can tie a raffia or twine bow around them with a label that says “thank you!”

A très chic Parisian theme lends itself to elegant celebrations. Whether the shower is indoor or outdoor, invite guests to step into the imaginative streets of Paris where elegant streamers are strung from above and tall replicas of the Eiffel Tower sit among authentic French desserts.

• Decor ideas: Experiment with black, white, and pink with gold accents. Miniature French flags spiked into hors d'oeuvres can also paint the scene.
• Drink ideas: Champagne, of course! Use Eiffel Tower glass charms for a fun effect.
• Game ideas: Test everyone’s foreign language skills. Read off a word in French and have guests write down what they think the English translation is.

Bridal showers were traditionally meant to help prepare the bride for married life…including her wedding night, which is where the origins of the lingerie shower can be traced back to. Sometimes, the lingerie shower is hosted as its own separate event, but it can also work nicely as a cheeky and fun bridal shower theme. Our one word of advice? Double check that the bride is comfortable with this theme before you get too far into planning, especially if you plan to invite the bride’s family members and even future in-laws.

• Decor ideas: Transform your venue into a boudoir complete with soft lighting, silky fabrics, and lots and lots of flowers. You can even use some pieces of lingerie as decoration by hanging them from garlands above tables or doors.
• Game idea: Sometimes reserved for bachelorette parties, the panty game works perfectly for a lingerie shower. Ask each guest to bring an unwrapped pair of panties in the bride’s size that reflect their personality with them to the shower. Then, place all of the panties in a bag and have the bride try to guess who brought what as she adds them to her lingerie collection.
• Favor ideas: Send guests home with a few sugar cookies decorated to look like cute pairs of undies, or give them something they can add to their own boudoir, like a silk sleep mask or scrunchie.

The bride-to-be you’re celebrating has found her prince charming, so why not help her fully step into her princess moment with a fairytale-inspired bridal shower? Get this theme right by leaning into all things whimsical and girly—think frothy pink linens, lace, flowers, and a dress code that encourages guests to channel the ladies of Bridgerton.

• Venue ideas: A fairytale theme will be easiest to pull off if you can find a venue with plenty of existing charm — think a restaurant with a storybook vibe, a botanical garden, or even a friend’s cottagecore-inspired home.
• Decor ideas: No matter your venue, bring the fairytale to life with whimsical decor details. Overload tablescapes with flowers, girly linens, and sparkly accents, add lighting with tapered candles in vintage-inspired candelabras, and tuck paper butterflies, hummingbirds, and even fairies throughout the space.
• Drink ideas: Upgrade your standard mimosa bar by offering a few pre-mixed spritz options (Aperol is always a beautiful choice, and easy to batch in advance) along with edible glitter for guests to mix into their drinks for a bit of extra magic.

For a bridal shower theme that is as simple as it is elegant, go with something blue. How you choose to pull this off is totally up to you — so keep the bride’s aesthetic and preferences in mind when choosing the details and decor for your celebration. Oh, and be sure to ask everyone to wear blue!

• Decor ideas: The name of the game here is blue, blue, and more blue. Tie blue ribbons to the stems of wine glasses or the backs of chairs. Rent beautiful blue table linens or snaz up a white tablecloth with napkins and plates that feature pops of blue. Fill vases with beautiful blue flowers like hydrangeas, delphinium, and forget-me-nots, and, if you’re outside, set up a few periwinkle blue umbrellas for shade.
• Food ideas: Subtly extend the blue theme into your menu with a few well-chosen blueberry dishes. Think a summer salad with blueberries, blueberry tart, or even blueberry pancakes, if you’re hosting a brunch.
• Favor ideas: Send guests home with their own something blue! This could look like a small bouquet of blue flowers, a mini champagne bottle with a blue label, or even a bottle of blue nail polish.

Popping the bubbly is bound to happen at any bridal shower, so why not turn it into your theme? This fun pearls and prosecco bridal shower theme is perfect for expert and novice party planners alike, as it can be as involved or simple as you’re comfortable pulling off.

• Dress code idea: Ask everyone to wear pearls to the bridal shower, and encourage the bride to come wearing pearly white.
• Decor ideas: Use the pale golds, pinks, and luminous whites of both pearls and prosecco as your color palette when planning. Find serveware with a pearlescent sheen, decorate tables in baby-pink linens, and incorporate gold accents throughout. It could also be fun to buy strands of faux pearls to use as garlands or to scatter across your tablescapes.
• Drink ideas: Your drink menu should revolve around prosecco, obviously! In addition to keeping the bubbly flowing, set up a station where guests can make their own prosecco cocktail or spritz — think orange and peach juice for mimosas and bellinis and batched spritz bases that guests can use to make Aperol spritzes or French 75s.

Perfect for a couples shower, a backyard or park barbecue and brew can be a great outdoor option for a spring or summer event. It is great for the guy (or gal!) who prides himself on being a grill master and it allows for a more casual setting. Invite guests to wear more comfortable clothes and encourage them to hold off on a gift and instead to bring their favorite six-pack of beer.

• Favor Ideas: Provide guests with a small jar of homemade BBQ sauce or a custom bottle opener with the couple’s names on it.
• Decor Ideas: Red and white checkered tablecloths are a must!
• Food Ideas: Consider a barbecue and picnic theme. Ribs, potato salad, rolls, corn on the cob, etc.

For the outdoorsy couple, plan a unique shower out in nature with a scenic hike and pack a picnic. Just be sure to choose a beginner-friendly trail so that everyone can participate. When you get to a scenic spot – whether it’s a lake, the top of a mountain, or a beautiful meadow– settle in with your closest friends for a lovely meal.

• Food ideas: Set up a trail mix bar so guests can make their own variety before setting off on the hike. Stock a variety of ingredients like dried fruit (cranberries, peaches, apricots, blueberries, banana chips, coconut chips), nuts and seeds (roasted almonds, cashews, peanuts, pumpkin seeds), and sweets (chocolate chips, yogurt chips, M&Ms).
• Favor ideas: A patterned bandana or reusable water bottle, personalized with a wedding monogram or hashtag are both great favors, and are something that your guests will definitely use long after the wedding is over.
• Game idea: Play couples trivia! Ask a series of questions about the couple. If both partners are there, have them respond with their own answer and what they think the other’s response will be.

Hosting a couples cocktail-style shower allows guests to interact with each other while learning (and tasting) something new. Hosting the shower at a local bar in a private space with a mixologist is great, but it’s just as wonderful to host in someone’s home!

• Decor ideas: Regardless of where you host, you can keep decor pretty simple and focus on the beauty of the cocktails you’re making. String twinkly lights, wind greenery and florals on tables, use small and large crates to display the cocktail(s) you’ll be creating, and perhaps use gold balloons to hang for the initials of the couple getting married.
• Food ideas: Pair some elevated snacks with the cocktail you make. Oysters, small sandwiches or sliders, gourmet pizza bites, and crudité are all great options.
• Game ideas: Prompt guests to write down their favorite date night ideas and leave these in a box for the lovebirds to revisit once they are married.

Help the couple stock their liquor cabinet with a spirits-themed shower. Invite guests to bring their favorite top-shelf bottle. Have gift tags and ribbon on hand so guests can write a quick note explaining why it's their favorite and tie it around the bottleneck. This shower is fun to host at a local bar or restaurant, or the couple’s home.

• Drink ideas: Have a variety of mixers to go with the brand-new bottles of booze (fresh juices, sparkling water or tonic water, simple syrup, ginger beer, etc.), plus plenty of citrus-rind twists and fruit garnishes for serving.
• Food ideas: Pair the cocktails with tasty bar snacks, like cheeses, charcuterie, olives, gourmet potato chips, and spiced nuts.
• Favors: Send guests home with a book of cocktail recipes, or chic barware accessories, like a stirrer, jigger, or bottle opener.

A travel-themed shower is especially fun when you can tie them in with the couple’s interests. See if there is a way to pay tribute to their favorite travel spot in your party planning. Use vintage luggage, old travel books, and funky cameras as table centerpieces. Feature photos throughout the venue of the couple’s actual travels together. If they’ve included anything on their registry that is travel-related, encourage guests to purchase these items so the lovebirds can use them on their honeymoon.

• Decor ideas: Utilize maps, globes, and travel guides. Incorporate a “Traveling from Miss to Mrs.” sign if it feels right, for example.
• Game ideas: Give each guest a “passport” with prompts on it. It is basically “find someone who,” where you’re encouraged to mingle among guests to find someone who’s wearing red, has an older sibling, etc. The first person to fill their passport wins.
• Favor ideas: Everyone will appreciate a nice luggage tag.

An ice cream social-themed couples shower is a great low-key way to get both sides of the wedding party, along with your close family, together in one place! This works especially well for a summertime shower, where you can host everyone outside around a pool.

• Food ideas: This theme is all about the ice cream! But in addition to setting up an ice cream bar (or, if your budget allows, hiring a cute ice cream vendor to serve up scoops for you), it is a good idea to have a few savory and salty menu items for guests to enjoy as well. Crowd-pleasers like pizza, or hotdogs and hamburgers work nicely.
• Drink ideas: Give your guests the option to make their own boozy ice cream float. Stock the bar with a pint or two of ice cream, small fruit-flavored popsicles, sodas, juices, and liquors that guests can use to make floats or cocktails that they can top off with something sweet.
• Favor ideas: If you have the ability to keep them cold, sending guests home with a pint of the couple’s favorite ice cream is a super sweet favor idea. Or, you can give everyone a cute ice cream scoop personalized with a wedding monogram or hashtag.

Getting inspired by the ocean and the beach is the perfect, easygoing bridal shower theme. Whether you’re able to host the celebration on the sand or are bringing beachy vibes to your venue, decorate your party space with seashells, pastels, and cute umbrellas.

• Food ideas: Go along with the beach theme and serve oysters, some cold treats such as popsicles (if it’s hot), and if you’re serving desserts such as cupcakes or cake, have them decorated in a beach theme (with barnacles, rope, etc.).
• Game idea: Play “a message in a bottle.” Each guest writes words of wisdom and puts them in a bottle. Have the guest of honor take these home for the happy couple to open together, and will serve as a sweet keepsake.
• Drink ideas: Drinks may vary depending on what food is served, but safe bets would be champagne and a specialty cocktail. See if you can factor in a miniature cocktail umbrella into the presentation! Keep water on hand if you’re at the actual beach for extra hydration.

If you’re throwing a summer wedding or bridal shower, make it feel like a sun-soaked getaway with palm frond decor and tropical flavors galore. Look for a spa, hotel, or friend’s backyard with a pool and gazebo that can be sectioned off semi-privately or rented for an afternoon to celebrate. Embrace the tropical theme with colorful tableware, pineapples carved as vases or cocktail glasses, and flamingo patterned napkins or tablecloths.

• Food ideas: Keep it light with fruit salads, popsicles, and platters with cheeses, nuts, and crackers.
• Drink ideas: Create cocktails and juices that play off the tropical theme such as a pineapple mojito, guava mimosa, or coconut pina colada.
• Favor ideas: Provide bamboo fans or take-home pineapples as a fun and quirky favor.

Celebrate with a whimsical nautical-themed wedding or bridal shower. If you’re able to host the shower on the water or on a boat that’s ideal, but this theme will be just as great in your living room! It will easily come to life using the traditional blue and white colors as the base for decorations and adding all kinds of other decor and personality on top of it.

• Decor ideas: Use accent colors such as yellow, red, or pink. Fun additions include rope, fishing net, sand dollars, anchors, and driftwood.
• Food ideas: Crab bites, mini shrimp, cupcakes with edible anchors...the options are endless!
• Favor idea: Set up a candy bar with candies that are different shades of blue. If you have mini mason jars on hand, allow guests to fill one as their departing favor.

Create a cozy outdoor cinema experience for the bridal shower. Set up a large screen or projector, provide comfy seating with blankets and pillows, and serve popcorn and movie-inspired snacks. Choose one of the bride's favorite romantic films or a classic wedding movie like Father of the Bride or My Big Fat Greek Wedding for a nostalgic atmosphere.

• Decor ideas: Create a comfortable lounge area with outdoor seating such as bean bags, blankets, and floor cushions. Add string lights or lanterns for a magical ambiance. Set up a photo booth area with movie-themed props and a large movie poster backdrop. Provide Polaroid cameras or a photo booth app for everyone to capture fun memories.
• Drink ideas: Serve movie-themed cocktails like "Hollywood Sunset" or "Silver Screen Sparkler." Personalize the drinks by adding edible glitter, fruit garnishes, or movie-themed stirrers.
• Food ideas: Serve classic movie theater snacks like nachos with cheese dip, mini hot dogs, pretzels, and popcorn chicken bites. Display them in colorful popcorn boxes or retro-style food containers.

Bridal showers get their name from a Victorian-era tradition in which guests would fill an open parasol with gifts, therefore “showering” the bride with everything she needed for her wedding. So why not nod to this tradition and play on the “shower” pun with this sweet theme?

• Decor idea: If you’re hosting the shower indoors, source a variety of sweet vintage-inspired umbrellas to use as decor. Arrange them to hang above the table where you’ll be sitting, place them in cute baskets around the space, and more.
• Food ideas: This theme is perfect for early spring bridal showers, where the weather can still be a little bit fickle. So plan your menu around the bride’s rainy-day favorites — think comfort food like tomato soup and grilled cheese, coffee cake, and more.
• Favor idea: Send guests home with a small umbrella of their own!

As the weather gets warmer, get everyone outside for a sweet picnic-themed bridal shower. We love this shower theme because it can be hosted in low-cost venues like a local park, and because it can be as elaborate or as laid-back as you want it to be!

• Decor ideas: Every picnic-themed bridal shower should revolve around a beautiful picnic setup. This could be as simple as laying out a few coordinating picnic blankets, cushions, and filling a vintage picnic basket or two with flowers, or if your budget allows, you could hire a luxury picnic company to come and set up a glamorous table for you ,complete with umbrellas and fine china.
• Food ideas: Go for classic picnic fare that is easy for guests to eat while sitting on the ground. Think pasta salad, gourmet sandwiches, quiches, and pastries.
• Game ideas: Take advantage of being at the park or in a backyard by setting up a game of bridal ring toss! Collect some used wine bottles and have guests try to toss hoops decorated to look like wedding bands onto them. You could also set up a flower-crown making station where guests can weave their own daisy chains while enjoying the picnic.

Whether everyone will be jetting off to the Amalfi Coast for the wedding or the bride simply loves a good spritz, an Italian themed bridal shower is sure to be a crowd pleaser. This theme works nicely in a variety of venues, from a backyard to a local Italian restaurant or even a winery.

• Drink ideas: Complement a menu of Italian classics like pasta, pizza, and bruschetta with a selection of Italian wines for guests to choose from. If you’re going for a spritz-focused twist on the theme, set up a station where guests can make their own!
• Decor ideas: Transform your space into a beautiful Tuscan villa by draping tables in natural linens and bringing in boughs of rosemary and lavender into the venue. If you’re going for a Riviera-inspired theme, layer on blue-and-white tableware, bougainvillea, and lemons to make your space feel like Capri.
• Favor idea: Thank your guests for coming by sending them home with a package of biscotti or a small bottle of Italian olive oil wrapped up with a beautiful ribbon.

Planning a wedding or bridal shower concept comes with quite a few to-dos, but cultivating a garden-themed celebration is one that is as easy as it is sophisticated. Lean on Mother Nature to provide much of the beauty for a backyard shower and incorporate additional greens and roses into the decor for a beautiful setting.

• Decor ideas: The focus here is on the flowers, but we love the idea of bringing florals into every aspect of the shower with garden-themed place settings, menu signs, game cards, etc. that can be customized with the couple’s names, initials, or wedding date.
• Drink ideas: Serve up cocktails with edible flowers and for non-alcoholic beverages, try using ice cubes frozen with flower petals inside.
• Favor idea: Give each guest a mini-potted plant so they can let love grow!

Celebrate the fact that your bride-to-be has found her main squeeze with a super cute citrus-themed wedding shower! You can incorporate this theme into your celebration in a ton of different ways, but one of our favorite ways to do so is to ask guests to wear citrus colors like yellow, green, orange and pink.

• Decor ideas: In addition to asking guests to come wearing citrus colors, you should use that palette to inform all of your decorations. Build a yellow, pink, and orange balloon arch to welcome guests with, decorate tables with citrus-colored linens, and even complete floral arrangements with a few strategically placed whole or cut pieces of fruit.
• Favor ideas: Send guests home with a sweet jar of lemon preserves or something with a delicious citrus scent, like hand cream or a candle.
• Game idea: Set up a station with citrus-shaped or citrus-colored cards and pens where guests can write down their best piece of advice for the bride as she moves into this new chapter of her life.

Wedding planning can be a stressful time, and it is only natural for the bride to be experiencing a bit of butterflies in the run-up to her big day! So play on that feeling with this sweet butterfly bridal shower theme. If you plan to do gifts, ask guests to bring something for the bride that will help her relax both before and after the wedding.

• Decor ideas: Many of the same decor ideas we shared for garden parties and tea party-inspired bridal showers work here, too! Just be sure to layer in plenty of butterfly accents throughout your venue — tuck paper butterflies into bouquets, look for butterfly-printed napkins, or even find a few larger-than-life butterflies to hang in a garland or above your tablescapes.
• Drink ideas: Nod to the theme, and create some seriously beautiful cocktails and mocktails with butterfly pea flower tea. The vibrantly purple tea has a light botanical flavor that pairs perfectly with citrus, making it easy to add to lemonade and cocktails.
• Game idea: Wedding bingo is a bridal shower classic that can be easily adapted to a butterfly theme. Look for bingo cards with butterfly accents, or give guests a sheet of butterfly stickers to use to mark off bingo squares filled with classic wedding gifts or phrases.

Wedding & bridal shower themes are the most fun when there’s an interactive component! Hit the local flower market and set up a bouquet bar at your shower venue. Display each flower variety in galvanized pails or clear-glass vases, and then invite guests to make their own flower bouquet to take home. Or, you could hire a local florist to teach a Flower Arranging 101 class or an interactive lesson on how to make a flower crown. Consider hosting at someone’s home or renting out a local florist’s shop during off-hours.

• Food ideas: You should absolutely incorporate florals into your menu! Serve shortbread cookies topped with sugared edible flowers and slices of cake embellished with hand-painted florals.
• Favor ideas: Set up a wrapping station with plenty of craft paper and ribbon so guests can wrap their own take-home bouquet.
• Game ideas: While not a game per se, we’d say there’s nothing more fun than creating bouquets!

Creating a relaxing and indulgent spa atmosphere can be a fun way to celebrate the bride-to-be and spoil your guests. Set up stations for manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages. Provide luxurious robes, slippers, and scented candles. Serve healthy spa-inspired snacks and refreshing infused water. Or, you could hire a professional makeup artist to come to the party venue and teach a makeup application lesson. Another idea is to book a group appointment at a local perfumery and invite guests to create their own perfume blend to bring home.

• Drink ideas: Lots of bubbly, as well as self-serve cucumber spa water and lemonade.
• Food ideas: Get inspired by the light and healthy fare you’d find on a spa menu by serving soups and salads. Then, encourage your guests to indulge a little with a collection of fine chocolates for them to sample.
• Favor idea: Send guests home with an at-home spa kit with sheet masks, bath salts, fizzy bath bombs, and bottles of nail polish.

Put this in the category of one-of-a-kind party themes! Enlisting a psychic, palm reader, or card reader to predict futures is only part of the fun. Set up crystal stations, an incense bar, and astrological info so people can compare their signs. This slumber party-esque shower is a lovely way to gather before the big day. (Pro tip: Not everyone is comfortable having their cards read, so be clear in the invitation that guests are not going to be pushed to participate if they don’t want to.)

• Decor ideas: Drape tables in deep green, blue, and purple velvets for a sense of rich decadence. Use candles, incense, and twinkly lights. Greenery is great on tables if you’re eating a meal or setting up stations.
• Favor idea: Attendees choose a crystal from the crystal table to take home.
• Game idea: Have guests channel their inner mind readers by playing the “Who am I?” game. This game entails writing the names of famous couples or wedding-related characters on sticky notes or name tags. Then, ask each guest to place their tag somewhere they can’t see it and ask other attendees yes/no questions to try to find out who they are.

If your best friend is an avid yogi, then a rejuvenating wedding or bridal shower to de-stress with friends is the perfect way to gather. Ask your friend’s favorite yoga instructor to teach the class and request that attendees bring their own mats (make sure you have extras just in case). Prepare a separate space for after the class where everyone can lounge, eat, chat, and hang out.

• Decor ideas: Disperse floral arrangements a safe distance from yoga mats throughout the space. Also, light little votives or use battery-operated ones to add a warm glow to your venue. For the lounge space after yoga class, bring in colorful pillows, lanterns, and even more florals.
• Food ideas: Keep food light after class. Think fruit, nuts, finger sandwiches, or acai bowls.
• Drink ideas: Smoothies or spa waters infused with cucumber, lemon, orange, or strawberry.

Throw a shower that reflects the bride-to-be’s sense of adventure. Find someone in your friend group who has a great backyard or locate a park that has the right space for the key elements, and pitch a tent and sleeping bags for a campout. These include things like a bbq meal, roasting s’mores around a fire, and sharing lots of laughs over games and good stories.

• Food ideas: BBQ, hot dogs, s’mores, mini pies.
• Drink ideas: Fireball hot chocolate is the way to go if you’re going to spike a classic! Mulled wines are also delicious on a chilly evening.
• Game ideas: Horseshoes, a good old-fashioned scavenger hunt, Jenga, stargazing...the options are endless!

Plan a group cooking class for the shower! This is a more formal spin on the “Kitchen-themed” idea we shared earlier in this article. Find a local chef who has a kitchen set up and event space that will fit your guest list. Start the shower with mingling and drinks and then usher everyone into the cooking class. The final product will be the meal guests eat for dinner! It’s the perfect interactive way to spend an evening.

• Decor ideas: Because space needs to be mostly cleared for cooking, considering stringing twinkly lights from the ceiling or doing high balloons that say “The Future Mrs. or Mr. ____”.
• Drink ideas: Talk to the Chef in advance and pair wine with what you’ll be cooking. Provide a thirst-quenching mocktail for those who don’t wish to drink.
• Favor ideas: Favors could include local spices or salts, packaged with a label that has the couple’s wedding monogram on it.

Bring the vibrant energy of New Orleans to the bridal shower with a Mardi Gras theme. Decorate with colorful masks, beads, feathers, and jazz-inspired elements.

• Decor ideas: Use a bold and lively color palette featuring purple, green, and gold. Create stunning centerpieces using feathered masks and colorful beads arranged in tall vases or decorative containers. Hang strings of colorful beads to create a festive backdrop for photo opportunities.
• Drink ideas: Serve the classic Sazerac cocktail, made with rye whiskey, absinthe, sugar, and bitters. Garnish with a lemon twist for a vibrant touch. Hurricane Punch is also fun for this theme. Mix up a batch of refreshing Hurricane punch—a fruity and rum-based cocktail. Serve it in large pitchers or punch bowls, garnished with citrus slices.
• Food ideas: Serve traditional Cajun and Creole dishes like gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, or shrimp po'boys. Have a King Cake as the centerpiece of your dessert table and a selection of New Orleans-inspired snacks such as beignets (fried doughnuts), Cajun-spiced nuts, or seafood bites.

If you know the bride would prefer to skip the classic bridal-shower games, hosting a paint and sip class is a great activity-filled alternative to a traditional bridal brunch. Many paint and sip businesses can accommodate full buy-outs, where you can host the party in their space, or tap a friend with an artistic streak to lead the class.

• Decor ideas: If you plan to host the paint and sip in someone’s home, keep in mind that your tablescapes will likely need to do double-duty as a space where guests will paint their masterpieces and eat. So set tables in linens that can be swapped out or wiped down, such as plastic or butcher-paper tablecloths in the wedding colors. Hang art-inspired garlands throughout the space, and incorporate fun vintage vases filled with paint brushes onto the gift and drink tables.
• Drink ideas: Sipping is just as important as painting to this theme, so be sure to have plenty of drink options for your guests to choose from! Offer a range of wines (including some bubbly, of course), as well as pre-batched cocktails that can be easily poured throughout the class.
• Favor ideas: In addition to sending guests home with their very own piece of art, it could be a sweet idea to give everyone a thank you card that features a custom illustration as a keepsake.

If the bride you’re celebrating is an avid reader, a literary-themed bridal shower is something that she’s sure to love! This theme can be taken in a ton of different directions: lean into a storybook vibe if she’s an avid fantasy reader, or go for something slightly more formal if she’s a lover of classics like Pride and Prejudice.

• Decor ideas: In addition to taking inspiration from the bride’s favorite literary genre, center books throughout your shower space! Incorporate them into centerpieces, use them to display dishes, and set up the gift-opening station in front of a beautiful bookcase if you can.
• Activity idea: If your budget allows, hire a poet to set up shop at the shower who can write short custom poems based on each guest’s life story and personality.
• Favor idea: Buy a few copies of the bride’s favorite books (hitting up a used bookstore for this is a good way to keep costs down) and assemble a little library for guests to choose a tome from. Including an inscription saying “Thank you for attending [name’s] bridal shower!” along with the date inside the front cover is an extra sweet touch.

Celebrate the star-crossed lovers with this celestial-inspired bridal shower theme! If the bride is comfortable, you can lean into astrology with this theme, hiring an astrologer to read guests birth charts and decorating the space with zodiac-inspired details.

• Decor ideas: Whether or not you choose to lean into the astrology aspect of this theme, you should definitely decorate your space with plenty of celestial-inspired details. Think garlands of trialing stars, silver accents, and linens the color of the night sky.
• Favor ideas: Thank your guests for coming by sending them home with a candle in the bride’s favorite scent and a matchbook that features a beautiful illustration of constellations.

What’s not to love about a bit of wine tasting? For a bride who is a vinofile, this is the perfect shower idea. Consider hosting the shower at a local winery, where one of their sommeliers can lead everyone in a wine tasting, or host the shower in the home of a friend or family member and lead the tasting yourself.

• Game idea: For a game that works if you’re hosting the shower at home or at a winery, set up a blind tasting. Give everyone a slip of paper and small sips of the same three wines (choose all whites or all reds). Then, have each person taste the wines and write down what variety they think it is. The winner goes home with a bottle of wine!
• Food ideas: Be sure to have plenty of food on hand to keep guests well fueled as they taste wine. Go for winery-inspired fare by serving pizzas, pasta, and fresh salads.
• Favor ideas: For favors that are sure to come in handy long after the wedding, give each guest a wine opener or decorative bottle stopper.

It doesn’t get more wholesome and fun than a grown-up pajama party! The key here is to ask guests to come in their best pair of pajamas (bonus points for coming in a fabulous pair of slippers, too), and go all-out with nostalgia-inspired decor, treats, and games.

• Decor ideas: Transform your party venue into the ultimate slumber party by bringing in tons of cushions, pillows, and blankets for everyone to cozy up with. Set up candles and hang string lights to cast a warm glow over the space.
• Food ideas: Set up a buffet with elevated twists on classic slumber party treats and food like pizza, cookies, candy, and popcorn.
• Game ideas: No pajama party is complete without a few games, so be sure to leave time for a couple in your day-of schedule. We love the idea of hosting a scavenger hunt featuring clues related to the bride herself and playing wedding-inspired pictionary.

Bows have emerged as one of the biggest fashion, decor, and wedding trends over the last few years — and our love affair with the sweet detail isn’t going anywhere. So why not put bows front-and-center with a super cute “tying the knot” themed wedding shower?

• Decor ideas: To avoid overdoing it on the bows, find a central detail that you’d like to add them to. Tying them to the stems of wine glasses is an elegant option (and can double as a good way for guests to differentiate their glasses from each other’s, if you use different colored ribbons), or you could use oversized bows to create a garland.
• Game idea: Play a few rounds of Pin the Bow on the Bride for a fun, bow-inspired twist on a classic wedding shower game.
• Favor ideas: Really any favor—from sweet treats to mini bottles of champagne—works with this theme as long as you finish them off with a beautiful bow!

Popular themes include Brunch, "We Do" Brews & BBQ, Beach Celebration, Afternoon Tea Party, and Garden Party, among others.

Consider the bride's personal style, interests, and season. You can also consult the bride to ensure the theme aligns with her vision for the day.

Organize self-serve drink and food stations, feature colorful decor, and provide mini bottles of champagne or rosé as favors.

Yes, themes like "We Do" Brews & BBQ are great for couples showers, allowing for a more casual atmosphere where both partners are celebrated.

Host a "message in a bottle" game where guests provide marriage advice and use beach-themed decor like seashells and pastels to set the scene.

Serve spiked teas, offer a selection of tea sandwiches, and let guests create custom loose-leaf tea blends to take home as gifts.

Incorporate florals into everything from cocktails to menu signage and give guests mini-potted plants as favors.

Provide a variety of flowers and wrappings for guests to create their bouquets, and consider a floral arranging class with a local florist.

Arrange for spa services like manicures or massages, serve healthy snacks and drinks, and send guests home with spa kits as favors.

Utilize natural materials like burlap and wood in your decor, offer comfort foods, and play classic outdoor games for entertainment.