Updated on: Feb 23, 2024
It is often traditional for bridal showers to have activities and games. But during the times of COVID-19, everything is going through many changes - bridal showers being no exception. That is why our team at Easy Event Planning has put together a list of the best bridal shower games to bring out the joy in your celebration, updated for 2020’s circumstances, so everyone has a chance to get involved in the festivities, no matter how close or far away they are. Be sure to take advantage bridal shower budget, checklist, as well as free downloadable bridal shower bingo questions.
Traditional Bridal Shower Games and Activities
General Recommendation: Host the activities outside if the weather allows. No matter how effective your guests are going to be at social distancing, large indoor crowd gatherings are still very risky. Hosting all the games, or maybe even the entire event outside would make it a safer party for everyone. Here are some bridal shower game ideas!
1. Who Am I?
Before the shower, make a list of celebrities, one per guest. Send every guest a snippet of the list-- make sure that their name is missing. Watch the guests meet one another, trying to figure out who is who. Make sure all guests maintain a safe distance of 6 feet!
2. Dressing Up
Ask each guest to show up to the shower wearing a formal gown that they have in their closet. It can be their old wedding gown, prom dress, or any other fancy dress collecting dust! Have guests volunteer to talk about their outfits-- you hear stories telling anything from how it was made to scary stain stories.
3. Cake Ring
As you’re cutting the bridal shower cake, explain to guests that whoever finds an edible ring baked in the cake is destined to be the next bride!
4. Beauty Station
Serve your guests pampering with a beauty station! Find a local professional or get a few friends that are skilled in all things hair, makeup, and fashion. You and your girls can get your manis and pedis, style your hair with a new style and boost confidence, and nothing says girl time like makeup! End it all with a completely new look. Your friends will love it. A beauty station will make a positive ‘girl power’ environment for your friends! Way more enjoyable than a typical bridal shower game
5. Don’t Cross Your Legs
Randomly hand out a few inexpensive gifts to guests that arrive at the party. Make sure you have fewer gifts than people attending the shower. The goal is for no one to cross their legs during the shower, so instruct the guests to watch the guests with presents closely. If someone without a gift calls out a person with a gift as crossing their legs, the person without the gift gets to take the gift and keep it for themselves (thus making themselves a target for people calling them out on crossing their legs). Once the party is over, whoever is holding a gift may keep them.
6. Wine Tasting
A cute concept that ladies will love out of all these bridal shower games and activites, is to go wine tasting. Whether you go to a restaurant or have everyone bring a bottle, you and your friends will have the best time drinking and catching up. If you’re hosting the wine tasting grab some complementary foods with it like cheese and crackers or small triangle sandwiches and fruit. This event is classy, fun, and you don’t have to pretend to enjoy a game (unless you turn wine tasting into a drinking game!) You could even take it a step further and have your girls bring wine as gifts.
Book Bridal Shower Games and Activities
Photo From: Pixabay
7. Advice Book
During this point, everyone will seem to have this secret to a perfect marriage and what you should and shouldn’t tolerate. This is often not to mention all the ideas they have about what makes a wedding a good one. There’s also the do’s and don’ts during your “firsts” while married. It’s all love, of course, they care about you! Although it can be overwhelming trying to keep track of everyone's opinions. Make a DIY advice book and have your friends put thoughtful advice on them. Who knows, they may come in handy one day.
8. Scrapbook Decorating
Instead of playing a game ask your guests to decorate pages of a scrapbook together. It’s an activity that brings friends together and can take a trip down memory lane. It’ll be interesting to see how your friends have different creative and artistic styles. Scrapbooking is also a great way to break the ice for new guests that are in your social circle. It can be a time to share stories and laugh together. Grab some drinks, get the arts and crafts, and get creative! Go all the way with stickers, stamps, and colorful backgrounds to make your pictures pop.
9. DIY Recipe Book
Looking for better activities than a game? Make a DIY cookbook! Any notebook will work. Make sure it’s big enough to include pictures of your meals if you want to go the extra mile. It doesn’t just have to be dinner meals. You can include desserts that your family made up, makeup kids meals, add in family holiday traditions. Your guests could help in making it too! Find out what your friends are eating. Make a snack section for kids and adults also. Making your own recipe book is a better ice breaker than a game. Food always makes a great conversation.
10. Anniversary Wishes
Much like the advice book, make an “anniversary wishes” book. How to do it; Get a notebook and title it anniversary wishes. Write a number on each page and have your guests make a wish for you and your spouse. Each number represents a new year for your marriage. Have your friends write things like “Hope you have a baby by now!” Your friends are manifesting milestones for your new life!
Online Bridal Shower Games
Photo From: Pixabay
11. Get To Know Each Other
To avoid awkward conversations between guests getting to know each other, ask each guest to fill out a questionnaire about themselves and their relation to the bride or groom. Once everyone has arrived, ask each guest to read their card. This one is simple, easy, and to the point. This gives everyone a chance to share a meaningful story and, if some guests don’t know each other well, they will bond over their relationship with the engaged couple.
12. Bride & Groom Photo Challenge
Get together old pictures of both the bride and the groom, from every stage of life (including the cringe-worthy middle school pictures!). Make a slideshow of the pictures, and have guests guess the bride and groom’s ages in each photo. See if they remember any stories about them around the time each picture was taken!
13. Bride’s Wordcloud
This activity can be completed from anywhere with any amount of people. All you have to do is set up the question: “If __ would be an animal, what animal would it be?”. To do that, go to this website, and sign up-- it’s free! Create a presentation using “word cloud”, and you are all set! Ask all the guests to go to this site and enter the mention code- it should be displayed on top of the presentation. Enjoy the laughs as the word cloud expands with all kinds of phrases!
14. On My Mind
Have one guest start by choosing another guest. Throughout the game, they can not tell who their person is.. Let the guests take turns asking analogy questions, such as “If ___ were a restaurant, what type of restaurant would ___ be?” Once someone thinks they know who is on their mind, the guest may guess on their turn. If they are wrong, they are out of the game, and the questions may continue.
15. One Sided, Pre-Wedding Newlywed Game
Contact the groom before the shower to ask him for a list of questions that the bride should know (i.e. favorite tv show, hometown, shoe size). Let the guests predict how many correct answers the bride-to-be will guess, and then have them try to answer the questions! For more fun, ask for a “helping hand” if the bride is struggling- the guests might know it!
Other Fun Bridal Shower Games
16. What’s the Lie?
For a well-acquainted group, ask each guest to offer two truths and one lie about themselves. See if the other guests can figure out the lie.
17. What’s Missing
Type up ten different cocktail recipes and leave out one different ingredient in each. Ask every guest to guess the missing ingredient and write/type it down. The one getting the most missing ingredients wins--the prize is the ingredients!
18. Spoonful of Cotton
The guests must be blindfolded. Have them sit with a bowl of cotton balls in their lap. Give your guests a certain amount of time to use a large wooden spoon to get as many cotton balls out of the bowl in their lap to the top of their heads. Count the number that stayed up there when the timer goes off. The winner gets a fancy bowl. This is a great game if your guests are prepared to laugh!
19. Bridal Shower Question Game
This is a classic, fun game to see who knows the couple best. check out our bridal shower game questions.
Bridal Shower Games: Conclusion
This concludes our list of bridal shower games. Many of these games can be customized or adjusted to your liking to match your personality. We hope you enjoyed this list and check out other articles from Easy Event Planning at easyeventplanning.com for more bridal shower ideas, bridal shower themes, and party game ideas.
Written by Brittany Schmidt and Matvei Mozhaev; Contributor: Isabel Tenney