March Tutorial: How to host a virtual bridal shower

I'm baaaack!

Today I'd like to share with you one of the many projects that's been keeping me so darn busy this month. First of all, I have to mention that while I may talk about my wedding on a fairly regular basis, I don't think I've talked much about the fact that this is the year of the wedding in our household.

I've only ever been a flower girl in a wedding before... and that was a good 20-ish years ago. This year I'm a bridesmaid in two weddings, on top of being a bride in my own- one in June, ours in October, the last in November. But I'm not finished yet- there's two more! We're attending my bridesmaid Anna's wedding in May, and the other, which we unfortunately can't attend, is my cousin Jen's in November. Oye. So back to the project.

One of my high school girlfriends actually got married last June. Long story short, he's in the Air Force, was getting deployed, so they had a small ceremony at the time, but they still want a big celebration once he gets back. So this year, on their one year anniversary, they're having a traditional wedding and reception. Since I'm one of the bridesmaids, I stepped up to host the bridal shower. Difficult thing is, she lives in Montana and won't be back in Missouri (where most of her guests live and the wedding will be) until the week before the wedding. So I did the bridal shower working around this issue... virtual style.

The photo above was the evite that was sent out. I embedded the image into the body of an email and sent it to all the guests whose addresses I had. So how exactly do you host a virtual bridal shower? You start a blog, of course!

Step one: Email your invitation. (see first photo for mine) I recommend doing an open site after trying to do a private site myself. The hassle of sending invitations via blogger and folks who don't normally read blogs not understanding the process was a bit overwhelming- so learn from my mistake! Chances are you won't have too many uninvited folks visiting your site if you're not tagging posts and there are settings to make it invisible in blogger search and google search.

Step two: Make an intro page. I just made a post that would appear on the home page to serve as instructions for the shower itself. I also utilized the static pages feature that blogger offers to create the rest of the site. You're allowed to have ten pages total, and I used eight: (which you can see right under the header of the site) About the couple, registry, favors, advice, and four games: mad lib, 20 questions, in your purse, and first date.

Step Three: Choose your games wisely. Many bridal shower games require you to all be in the same room as each other. I picked the four that I did because they were games where guests could leave their answers in the comments. 20 questions was a game about Justin and how well Jackie knows him. I wrote questions like how did he find out Santa wasn't real (sorry if I just crushed anyone's dreams) and what was the name of his first pet. Guests left the number that they thought Jackie and Justin would answer the same way.

The Mad Lib was also fun because people just filled in the prompts, and when it was all over, I posted everyone's answers filled into the mad lib. Jackie picked her favorite for the winner. For first date- Jackie told the story of her first date with Justin, guests left their stories with their significant others, and Jackie picked her favorite for the winner. And finally, for in your purse, guests posted the contents of their purse and I had a key to award them points for each item.

Step Four: Make a page for guests to leave advice for the couple. Check out what our guests wrote:

Step Five: Get the registry information from the bride and set up a page to link to it. Since we couldn't bring gifts to watch her open them at a bridal shower, we all mailed our gifts straight to her.



Step Six: You can't have a bridal shower without a favor to thank the guests! I decided to do a printable piece of art. That way guests could print it from their own computers and frame/use it as they please. Don't think I'd leave you hanging... if you want to use my favor for a virtual shower of you own, (or if you just want a little freebie art!) you can download it here.

That's it! Simple, straightforward, and if you already have a blog then you know exactly what to do. Do you know a bride who lives far away from her guests and could benefit from a virtual shower? What other ways have you been creative with bridal showers?

Header and invitation art pieces made from downloads from Pugly Pixel.
Images of the couple courtesy of the bride.
Favor art done by Moi :)