Silly games are a fun part of a bridal shower, but the same games that seem to be at every shower get old quick. However, it is possible to choose unique game ideas that everyone will actually enjoy playing and that don’t include any awkward moments or embarrassing tasks.
Guess Who
Also known as Celebrity or HedBanz, this game involves each guest receiving an index card with the name of an iconic person. Guests aren’t allowed to peek at their card and they are secured onto everyone’s forehead to ensure no one knows who they have. Each guest gets their turn at receiving hints about who they are until they can guess. For a wedding twist, you can use the names of people, places, or things that hold significance to the bride and groom.
Bride-Groom Trivia
Contact the bride and groom’s relatives for stories from their childhood and any other details, and type up a multiple choice quiz with trivia about the bride and groom for the guests to fill out. Reading all the questions and answers out loud will make for a hilarious time and you can select the guest with the most right answers as the winner.
Nickname Guessing Game
Give each guest a slip of paper to write their little-known nicknames on. The fun comes from having everyone guess what nickname goes to who as you pull the written slips of paper out of a bowl. Hand out pre-numbered sheets of paper and have each guest write their guesses down for the number that corresponds with each guest’s name.
Cootie Catcher
Remember those times on the playground giggling with friends over the cootie catcher? It will be just as fun with all the ladies at the bridal shower. Start by assigning someone based on different options like Bride, Your Choice, Everyone, or Bride’s Choice, and spell the name of the chosen person or word “everyone” as you move the cootie catcher’s flaps in and out and side to side in rhythm with the letters. Next, ask the selected person to pick a number and move the flaps again as you count. Once you’ve counted, have the person pick a number again and then reveal what that flap instructs, which can be to make a toast, give a piece of marriage advice, tell your own love story, take a silly photo, or share a fun fact about the bride or groom.
Guess the Bride’s Age
Put together a board full of pictures of the bride displaying her at different ages. Be sure to mix them up so they’re not in order and hand a pencil and paper to everyone and ask them to guess the bride’s age by writing down their guess next to the line that corresponds with each photo’s number. Award a gift to whoever has the most right.
Find Your Match
This is a perfect game to keep with the love theme of the shower and involves having guests find their other celebrity love interest. Write the names of famous celebrity couples on sections of paper, with each member on either side of a heart, and use decorative scissors to cut down the center of the heart to create two cards. Place a card on each guest’s seat and ask them to go find their match. Make sure to include the bride and groom as one of the couples.
Telephone
Just about everyone is aware of the hilarious game of telephone and it can be just as fun now as it was back in elementary school. Put a written instruction card on a guest’s seat which asks her to initiate a toast, which can be anything from well-wishes to the couple or a funny story of the bride or groom. The toast will be whispered from guest to guest and hilariously mangled and mixed as it gets farther away from the original toast giver. Have the initiator announce the original message and the mixed up version from the group when the message gets back around to the start. Give each guest a turn at starting and sending off a toast.
You Know When…
The finish-that-thought bridal shower game is inspired by mad libs and is a fun way to gather marriage tips from each guest. After each lady is finished writing down their answer to the beginning of the written sentence, such as “You know you’re in love when…” or “Once upon a time..” have her write her name on the back of the card and place it in a stack. The answers will most likely range from serious to silly and it will be fun when everyone has to guess who wrote what. The cards then leave with the bride after the shower and make for super sweet keepsakes.
Choose one or a few of these games for guests to play at your upcoming bridal shower and you’ll have everyone pleasantly surprised and delighted.