Bridal Shower Game Ideas

Everyone loved The Newlywed Game television show. Bob Eubanks talking about “making whoopie” while wives hit husbands with giant answer cards. It is a nature fit for any bridal shower.

Directions

Most bridal shower games favor the bride in some way or excuse her from any potentially embarrassing moments. But with The Newlywed Game the bride is squarely on the hot seat as you test how well she really knows the groom with this game modeled after the classic TV show.

The Setup: Before the wedding shower, interview the groom and ask him a series of question about himself and his courtship with the bride. It is a good idea to ask many more questions than you will end up using, so you can pick the best to ask the bride at her shower. Some examples of questions you might ask:

Who introduced the couple when they first met?
Where were you the first time you kissed?
What habit of the bride most annoys the groom?
When did the groom know he was in love?
What was your first fight about?
Who said “I love you” first?

You can ask some suggestive or naughty questions, just be careful that you do not get so risqué that the bride is truly uncomfortable or embarrassed in front of her family and soon to be in-laws. If you do get a little naughty, make sure to use the phrase “making whoopie” just like the TV show.

Once you have interviewed the groom, pick eight questions to ask the bride and number the questions 1-8. Write the grooms answers with a large maker on 8 separate 8.5×11 pieces of heavy cardstock paper with the number of the associated question on the back.

The Rules: Give the bride a stack of 8.5×11 heavy cardstock paper and a large marker. Ask her the first question on your list and have her secretly write out her answer. Count 1-2-3 and the bride reveals her answer at the same time you show the groom’s answer for the first question to the bridal shower. Allow a moment for discussion then move on to the second question. Repeat the process until all eight questions have been answered. Hopefully the bride does well.

Make a Video of the Groom (optional): Make a video of the groom giving his answers and play them one at a time at the bridal shower before the bride reveals her answers. Just be sure to pause it in between answers.

Let your shower guests show off their artistic skills with the bridal shower version of the popular party game Pictionary.

Directions

This classic bridal shower game should be familiar to almost all of your shower guest. That is a good thing since it will allow you to start the game with very little explanation and guests have a lot more fun playing games than listening to rules while learning a game.

The Setup: Place a large dry erase board on a stand or the wall where everyone can see it and provide several different colors of dry erase makers. In a bowl put 25-30 folded slips of paper that each contains a unique wedding-related phrase. The phrases should be short, well know sayings or events related to weddings. For example:

Lastly, divide your guests into two teams.

The Rules: Flip a coin to see which team will go first and the winning team selects one person to be their first artist. The artist takes a slip of paper from the bowl and attempts to draw an image that represents the wedding-related phrase on the dry erase board. The artist cannot write any words, speak or make gestures other than to point out elements of the drawing. Allow the team 60 seconds from the first mark the artist makes on the dry erase board to guess the phrase. If the team guess the right phrase within the time limit they are awarded one point. If there is no correct answer in 60 seconds the other team gets one guess, if correct they get one point. Alternate turns between the teams with a new artist each time, the first team with ten points is the winner.

Prank the Bride (optional): Instead of the real wedding-related phrases, fill the bowl with slips of paper that all have something super simple written on them like “wedding dress”. Before the game starts, have an ally that is in on the prank call the bride into another room for a minute. When the bride is gone tell the shower guests about the prank, that she will get wedding dress as a phrase and no matter what she draws the guests(including the other team after 60 seconds) should guess anything except wedding dress.

When the bride returns start the game and tell her that since she is the bride, she is the first artist. After 60 seconds of her team not guessing the right answer and the other team not being able to understand her drawings, tell her that was just bad luck and since she is the bride you will just start the game over and she should take a second phrase from the bowl. When she gets wedding dress a second time explain to her that that must be an mistake and she should pick a third phrase from the bowl. When she gets wedding dress a third time give her a few seconds to process what is going on then let her in on the prank. Once everyone has shared a good laugh, replace the fake phrases in the bowl with the real ones and play Bridal Shower Pictionary normally. Just make sure someone other than the bride goes first.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The bride might have more words than that for you if you use an embarrassing picture of her for your How Old is the Bride game.

Directions

One of the challenges for this game that surprises some bridal shower planners is being sure of the exact age of the bride in the photographs. You might have a great photo of the bride as a kid, but there is disagreement as to if she is four or five in the picture. Your best option in this situation is to get as many quality pictures as you can of the bride and select the ten that you are most sure of her exact age in the photo.

The Setup: You are going to need around ten photographs off the bride growing up at a variety of ages. The best source for these photos if you do not have them is usually the mother of the bride or the bride herself. Once you have the photos ranging from infant to the present, set them out on a table with a number (1-10) assigned to each picture.

The Rules: Give your shower guests pens and paper and ask them to guess the age of the bride in each photograph. Make sure they number their guesses with the associated number of the photograph. The person with the most correct answers is the winner. After the game is a great time for the bride, family members and friends to tell stories about the different photographs.

Use Scans or Copies: Original photographs are great, but it is recommended that you use scans or copies of the photos of the bride for your shower. While the quality will not be quite as good, it is worth it to eliminate the risk of an accident damaging the precious original photos. If you use original photographs take extra care to make sure that they are not damaged and are returned to their owner.

Most bridal shower games can be played at coed/couples bridal showers, but games specifically designed for both men and women usually work best. Wedding Couple Improv is a game that works well for both guys and girls by design.

Directions

Put the soon to be married couple in the front row for these performances that poke fun at them. That way there is no place for them to hide as their friends and family imitate them in touchy situations.

The Setup: Come up with improv scenarios where the guests will be portraying the bride and groom. If possible, use real situations from when the couple was dating, but you can also use generic couple scenarios like:

-At the end of a dinner date the groom realizes he left his wallet at home.
-The bride has finally had it with the toilet seat being left up.
-It is Christmas, visit the bride’s family or the groom’s family?
-The couple discusses who gets to hold the television remote.
-Groom wants to stay home and watch a sporting event, bride want them to go shopping.
-The couple watch the bride’s favorite movie, the groom has never seen it and is bored to tears.
-Bride or groom tries to convince their spouse that their mother should visit for a month.

Once you have one for each team, come up with a few more as backups or a tie-breaker round(if needed) and put them all in a bowl. Finally, break the wedding shower guests up into teams of two, with a man and a women on each team.

The Rules: The teams draw a scenario from the bowl and have 60 seconds to do their imitation of the bride and groom in that situation. They key is for the performers to do their best to imitate the voice, accent, speech pattern, gestures, over-used phrase and personality of the couple. They can even adjust their hair, clothing or makeup to look more like the couple. After every performance the bride and groom each give the duo a score of 1-10, the scores are totaled and once every team has had a turn the one with the highest score wins.

Tie-breaker: If there should be a tie for the top score, use those extra scenarios to have a bonus round. The teams that tied each get one more shot, the highest score wins.

Historically, bridal showers where more focused on helping the bride prepare for married life than playing fun games. With A Shower of Advice you get a healthy dose of both!

Directions

The bridal shower guests get a chance to shower the bride with advice about married life with this heartwarming game.

The Setup: When you send out the invitations include a blank card for the guests to write down a piece of advice for the bride. It can be a poem, a favorite recipe, a story that shares some wisdom, or just bullet points of how to deal with sharing a bathroom or closet with a man. Have a few extras available at the shower in case guests forget or want to write extra advice for the bride.

As the guests arrive, collect the advice cards and make sure the guests signed the them. Put the advice cards in a bowl(one per guest if some guests wrote extras). When you are ready to play the game, pass out pens and paper.

The Rules: Draw the first card from the bowl, label it number one and read it to the bridal shower. The guests and the bride if she wants to play write down number one and their guess as to who wrote that advice card. Keep going until all of the cards have been read, then go back and reveal the author of each advice card. The guest that correctly guessed the most is the winner. After the game give the bride all of the cards, including any extras that guests wrote, as keepsakes.

Make a Scrapbook (optional): After the shower make a scrapbook that includes all of the advice cards(including extras) as well as photos from the bridal shower and give it to the bride.

Finding items for your tray might sound like a challenge, but it really is a lot easier than it seems. It is not about finding the perfect items to include. The fun is testing the guests’ memory so any little thing that relates to love or marriage works perfectly.

Directions

This memory game has been popular at bridal showers for many year which makes it an excellent choice for your event. It can also make it hilarious when you play the Surprise Twist Version since guests that are familiar with the game will be caught completely off guard.

The Setup: On a large tray place 15-20 small items related to love and weddings. Some possible items to include would be an invitation to this bridal shower, a red rose, a garter belt, a small scented candle, a game sheet from a game you played earlier, a cupcake, a costume diamond ring, or a wine cork. Get creative and fill the tray up with items.

The Rules: Bring out your tray and place it somewhere that the guests can crowd around and examine it. Allow them five minutes to study the items on the tray while you answer questions about the acceptable answers for each item. For example, if you have a red rose on the tray specify if you will allow “flower” or “rose” as a correct answer or if they have to write “red rose”. Once the time is up take the tray to another room and pass out pens and paper. Give the bridal shower guests five minutes to list as many of the items on the tray as they can recall. When the time has expired bring the tray back into the room so the guests can check their answers. Each correct item is one point, the person with the most points is the winner.

Surprise Twist Version (optional): Do the setup of the tray just like the standard version of the game, but have the bride bring the tray out to the bridal shower. When she enters with the tray suggest that the guests might want to pay attention to the bride because they will be tested on their memory later, but do not specifically mention that it will be the items on the tray they should be studying. The guests will naturally start examining the tray.

After five minutes have the bride leave with the tray and not return. Give the guests pens and paper and let them in on the twist. The challenge is not the items on the tray but about the bride and what she is wearing. Ask a series of questions like: What color is her nail polish, How many rings or bracelets is she wearing, Is she wearing flats or heels, How many buttons does her blouse have, Does she have anything in her hair? After around ten questions have the bride return so the guests can see if their answers were correct. The person with the most accurate answers is the winner.

I Remember When… is a great icebreaker to play early at your bridal shower since it gives the guests a chance to learn about the relationship of other guests with the bride.

Directions

The stories you hear about the bride are what makes this game great. Be prepared to pause the game if the bride and guests are enjoying a particular story. You can start the game up again once the discussion slows down.

The Setup: Pass out 3×5 cards and a pen to each bridal shower guest. Ask them to write down a brief description of a special memory they have of time spent with the bride. The story can be heart-warming, outrageous, funny, surprising, pretty much anything as long as it is not something that could make the bride uncomfortable on her special day. For example: “I remember when Stacy(bride’s name) and I told our parents we were going to a slumber party and went to a concert instead”. Once all of the shower guests have finished, collect the 3×5 cards and give each guest a blank piece of paper. Assign a number to each story so you can keep track of the answers later.

The Rules: Read each story in numbered order to your bridal shower. The guests must write down the story number and their best guess as to who wrote that story. Once you have read all of the 3×5 cards and the guests have all of their answers go back to the first story. Ask the person who wrote the story to reveal themselves and(with the help of the bride) share the whole tale with the bridal shower. When all stories have been read the person who correctly guessed the most authors is the winner.

Yummy cakes are a great addition to any bridal shower, but why just serve it when you can make it a game?

Directions

This game requires a lot of time for baking the cakes or money if you buy them. But keep in mind that this is not only a game, but is also part of the food you are serving at your bridal shower. So if you have a separate budget for food and games you can split the costs between the two.

The Setup: The goal is to have a cake table with 8-10 different flavored cakes, all with at least enough bite-sized portions for each guest to try each cake. There are a few way you can accomplish your goal. You can bake the cakes yourself and/or buy the cakes. You can have mini-cupcakes, cut up pieces of a small cake, cake balls or a combination of the three.

Some of the cakes can be simple like chocolate or angel food cake, but be sure to also include more complex flavors to challenge your guest’s pallets. You can add icing or filling to the cakes to make the game a little more difficult for your guests. Once you have your cakes, set them out on a table and assign a number each one.

The Rules: The guests sample each cake and secretly write down the number of the cake and their guess of the flavor. If the cake has icing and/or filling they also try to guess that flavor. Once all of the bridal shower guests have finished their guesses allow them some time to just enjoy the delicious cakes without worrying about the game. When everyone has had their fill, reveal the correct flavors and the guests are awarded one point for each accurate guess of cake flavor, icing and filling. The person with the most points is the Name That Cake winner.

The Prank Cake (optional): If you want to have a little fun with your bridal shower guests, make one cake that is a combination of many types of flavors. The idea is not for it to be gross, but for it to be completely impossible for them to determine the flavor. You can award a surprise second prize for the funniest guess for the flavor of the prank cake.

In this case “guns” refers to the arm muscles of the guys. Of course if you are having a redneck wedding it could be a completely different game.

Directions

With this coed or couples bridal shower game you can see how well the bride knows her groom as she must identify him while blindfolded only feeling his arm muscle.

The Setup: Unbeknownst to the bride, recruit some of the men at your shower to show off their biceps to the bride. Ideally, you would pick gentlemen that are of a similar build to the groom. When you are ready to play, blindfold the bride.

The Rules: Assign each of your gentleman volunteers and the groom a number starting with number one. In order, have them stand in front of the bride and make a muscle with the their arm. It is a good idea to have them pull up their sleeves so the bride cannot get clues from the shirts they are wearing. Guide the hands of the blindfolded bride to the exposed biceps and let her feel around only the upper arm area. Once she has had a chance to examine the guns of all of the guys let her take off her blindfold and guess the number of the fellow that was her groom. If she is right, she wins a prize. If she is wrong she might have some explaining to do.

Turnabout is Fair Play: You can play the game in reverse with the blindfolded groom trying to guess the bride by touching the calves of some of the ladies at the bridal shower.

The wedding vows can be one of the most touching moments in a wedding. So why not let your bridal shower guests suggest their own version of the wedding vows?

Directions

Encourage your bridal shower guests to be creative with their suggested wedding vows. They can be romantic, heart-warming or go for laughs with a funny vow. The only limitation is that they should take care to not write anything that might make the bride uncomfortable on her special day.

The Setup: Across the top of a piece of paper print out or write, ” I (bride’s name) take you (groom’s name) and promise to…”. On a second piece of paper do the same but from the groom’s point of view. Put each on a clipboard with a pen.

The Rules: Have your shower guests sit in a circle and hand each clipboard to a random person to start. The guest with the clipboard will write down their own suggested vow for the bride or the groom(depending on which clipboard they have). It can be funny like the groom promising to “Always put the toilet seat down in the bathroom” or touching like the groom promising to “brush the brides hair once a week”. Once the first guest is done they fold down the top of the paper to cover their vow, reattach the paper to the clipboard and pass it to the person on their left. That person then suggests a vow, folds down the paper and the process continues.

When everyone has written a vow for both the bride and the groom read the bridal shower wedding vow suggestions to the entire group. The bride then selects one bridal vow and one groom’s vow as her favorite, the author of those two vows are the winners of the game.

Make a Keepsake (optional): Once you have finished playing the game, type up both the bride and groom’s vows and print them on separate pieces of paper. Give them to the bride as a keepsake from her bridal shower.

Spice up your bridal shower with the fun game that challenges the culinary knowledge of your guests.

Directions

Name That Spice is a must have addition for any kitchen themed bridal shower, but is also a quick and easy game to include in any shower since you just have to grab some spices and bowls.

The Setup: Select a total of ten herbs and spices and put a small sample of each in a bowl. You want to include some that will be relatively simple like cinnamon, oregano or curry as well as some that will be difficult like cumin or tarragon. Place your spice bowls in a row on a table and label each with a number from 1-10 so the guests can number their guesses. Pass out pens and paper to everyone.

The Rules: The shower guests are allowed to smell and look at the spices but not touch or taste them. When they are ready, they write down the number of the spice and their guess as to which spice is in the bowl. When all of the guests have finished with all of the spices reveal the correct answers, the person who got the most right wins.

Increase the Difficulty: If you really want to challenge your bridal shower guests, cover the spice bowls with aluminum foil and poke a few holes in it. That way the guest can only smell the spices. But be warned, even kitchens divas can have a hard time playing Name That Spice with only their noses to help them out.

This challenging word game has an easy setup and a quick play time as well as a touching theme.

Directions

In a marriage, two people join together and create something new. With the Happy Couple Word Scramble game you join the names of the bride and groom and see what your guests can create.

The Setup: Print the first name of the bride and groom in large letters on the top of sheets of paper(ex. Richard and Emily). If the first names have few letters you and you want to give your shower guests more options you can also add the groom’s last name(ex. Richard and Emily Wilson). Give each guest one of the game sheets as well as a pen.

The Rules: Give the players eight minutes to write down as many words as they can come up with using only the letters in the names of the bride and groom. All words must be at least four letters and the singular and plural of a word both count. If the letter appears once in the names it can only be used once in the answer word.

After the eight minutes is up the guests are awarded one point for a four letter word, two points for five letters, three for six and so on. Words related to weddings count double points, so for example with Richard and Emily you could find the word “maid” as in Maid of Honor for double points. Have the guests add up all of their points and the person with the most is the winner.