by M. Sparga

Created on: May 24, 2007

Bridal showers are a time of gift-giving and good food, but when you have a mix of generations and people who may not know each other very well, you want to have plenty of fun games and activities planned too.

The types of games you play will of course depend on whether it's a couple shower or a girls-only event, as well as whether it's appropriate to embarrass the bride there or if that sort of thing is best saved for the bachelorette party. Here are some flexible games that should be fitting for any bridal shower crowd:

An ice breaker is a great way to set the celebratory tone and get people involved. A simple, fun one is "Two Truths and a Lie," where each person goes around and makes three statements about themselves, two of which are true and one of which is false. The rest of the guests must guess which one is the lie. If there are a lot of married people in attendance, another fun activity is to see who has the funniest story of how they met their spouse.

You should always plan a game that guests can play during the main event - when the bride opens her gifts. For example, you can have guests make their own bingo cards and populate them with items they think the bride will receive. When the bride opens an item on their card, they mark it off. The first person to finish a row (diagonals count) wins a prize.

It's always fun to take a familiar game and give it a wedding theme, such as with Scattergories. For this one, you can make game cards ahead of time that list the letters of the bride's name across the top and have wedding-related topics listed down the left. Examples are places the bride and groom could honeymoon, something found at a wedding reception, etc. Guests fill in their grid with items that start with each letter across the top, and when you compare everyone's responses, you get a point for each answer that no one else came up with.

You can help the bride get a head start on her thank-you cards by having each guest fill out their address on an envelope, then they enter the envelopes in a raffle for a prize. This is a nice, useful twist on the typical door prize drawing.

Another game idea is to have the mother of the bride supply ahead of time a bunch of photos of herself at different ages. Post these photos around and have guests guess how old she is in each photo. The person with the most correct guesses wins a prize.

These ideas are fun for groups who want to get more involved than just doing the ol' "count how many jellybeans are in this jar" contest but who don't want to go through the hassle of designing a wedding dress out of toilet paper for a prize. Just use your imagination, and you're sure to throw a fun shower that the bride and her loved ones won't soon forget.

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