Today, I was supposed to be hosting an extravagant, all-out bridal shower for my best friend, Jennifer. Instead, we are all “safer at home”, especially since the shower required many guests to travel to make it! The shower has now been pushed back a year. However, that didn’t mean we couldn’t do something fun to celebrate the bride to be! Whether the bridal shower you were planning was postponed or completely cancelled, there are still ways you can celebrate together!
1. Determine your guest list!
Since we had postponed the shower instead of canceling, I thought it would be best to keep this small and intimate. I invited the bridal party only. You can definitely make it a huge extravaganza instead, though! We ended up using Zoom, which can host hundreds of people in one meeting! It also worked for our small group of five.
2. Make an excuse
We wanted this to be a surprise, so I reached out to the bride, Jennifer, a week ahead of time and said I wanted to do a zoom call to discuss the details of pushing back her bridal shower. Make sure whatever excuse you come up with is believable! This worked for me, because we are still currently working on changing the date. In addition, I made up an excuse that we should get somewhat dressed up as if it’s a “girl’s night out” to make it a little more fun! I have to admit, that made her a little suspicious – but I couldn’t have her show up on the zoom call in sweats and a t-shirt! Haha. I knew she was the kind of person who would want to be dressed up for this. Most importantly, find a time that works for all parties. We had some people on Eastern time, and some on Pacific time. I spoke with the girls about times first, and then made sure that would work for the bride. We ended up chatting from 6-9pm PST, 9pm-12am EST.
3. Plan the activities
I knew we should definitely play some fun bridal shower games! I found this template online, quickly pulled it into photoshop, and created some fun games that I had seen around Pinterest. I asked her fiance, Derek, to answer the questions so I could have them as the answer sheet for the last game.
Additionally, I made a playlist with about 25 love songs on it for a fourth game. I played a snippet of each song, and they had to guess the title and the artist. They got one point for each, plus an extra point if the song had multiple singers and they could name them all. It was very fun! We couldn’t arrange for prizes for the winners, but that was okay. Everyone enjoyed the games anyway. Another thing I had to consider was gifts. Since we are only postponing her shower, I decided to forego gifts for this virtual shower. Finally, I made sure everyone had a drink (alcoholic or not) so that we could do a virtual toast to the bride!
4. Make it special
The call itself is great, but why not go the extra mile? I wanted it to feel like a real celebration, so I made sure to order flowers and cake. She lives in Markham, Ontario, while I live in Los Angeles, California. I know nothing about bakeries or florists in the area! However, my tried and true method of finding places is through Instagram. I tried searching hashtags like #markhamontarioflorist #markhamontarioflowers #markhamontariobaker #markhambaker #markhamontariocake and I also searched the Markham, Ontario geotag and looked through some of those photos. That’s how I found her lovely baker, Gayethiry! She was so accommodating and sweet! She made it so easy to design the virtual bridal shower cake of my dreams!
I also found Alethea Flowers through Instagram! I ordered a small bouquet of beautiful pink and purple blooms. Jennifer loved them! The cake and flowers were a huge hit!
Last, but not least, try to decorate your own space to make it feel extra special! I went a bit over the top. I created a balloon garland and hung it on the wall behind me. I wanted my backdrop to feel festive, as if we truly were all partying together!
5. Enlist the help of the fiancé.
I could not have done any of this without Derek’s help! He was such a trooper. He made an excuse to leave the house and pick up the cake and flowers, as well as some bubbly and a cake stand from Jennifer’s mom! He hid the cake and flowers in one room until Jennifer got busy on a work call, and then he moved the cake into the refrigerator and rearranged food so that it would be somewhat hidden. He picked up all of these things earlier the same day, so it only had to stay hidden for a few hours. He also arranged everything on the table so beautifully! I could not have made it look any better myself.
6. The Surprise!
This was the most fun part of it all! I made sure the other bridesmaids logged onto the zoom link 5-10 minutes early before I gave the link to Jennifer. Once she logged on, she was so surprised and touched to see us all!
Once she was surprised to see us all, we told Jenn to cover her eyes and told Derek to “get the goods” haha! This was when he set up the flowers, cake, and champagne so beautifully. Jenn opened her eyes and was so touched, she cried! That’s when I knew this was all worth it.
If you know a bride who had to push back her special day, I highly recommend doing something like this! Even if you already had a bridal shower in person, it may be nice to just regroup and celebrate like this. For Jennifer, everything was pushed back to next year, so there was nothing very special happening this year anymore. We decided to change that. She was so grateful. This was a super fun night! Do you know a bride who had to push her wedding? How did she pivot? If you’re in the bridal party, how have you helped accommodate these changes? Let me know in the comments below!
Cameron Butler
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