Sweet Shower: Fun and Games

Coming up with games for the shower had me pulling out my hair. I had never been to a bridal shower and had no clue what's fun to a bunch of women with ages/interests/backgrounds that are all over the map.

So I went with what I know best - sticking to the theme.

For the ice-breaker, I armed MOH-Ho with a stack of labels with names of different character associated with food (from Julia Child to Mrs. Butterworth) to greet the guests with. Here's a shot of MOH-Ho with her new identity as the Morton's Salt Girl:

She'd go hug her hellos, stick the label on each guest's back, and explained the rules (guess who you are by asking people only yes or no questions). This worked out wonderfully because it gave MOH-Ho brief one-on-one time with each individual as soon as they came in, and the labels ensured she would not miss a soul. It also gave guests an easy topic to mingle with. There were a lot of 'ooo, you've got a good one!' and/or 'do you know who you are yet?' going around even among those meeting for the first time.

Next to the cake plate guest book, I set up a couple games for guests to get to at their leisure. The first one is a simple guess-the-number-of-candy-in-jar game:

White chocolate raspberry almond M&M's was the perfect sweet and pink for this:It took some looking to find a jar to house 116 candies (11-6 was MOH-Ho's wedding date) just right!
The second game set up on the table had the ladies guessing jars of spices covered by tissue paper with small holes. By mainly sniffing, guests were to identify the spices. The game cards coordinated with the invite suite like everything else, but they were nothing special so I didn't take a photo. Here a digital snapshot though:

The last game was the most fun as it gathered the guests together for some chuckles. I made these game cards with 5 themey questions (see pics of front and back below). Guests answers were read to MOH-Ho and each author of her favorite answers won a prize.

I had MOH-Ho's now hubby read all the answers to her. It was a great way to involve the groom, and it bought me time away to figure out the winners of the other games.

If I recall correctly, Momma MOH-Ho was the winner for the first question with 'Chip Clip'. Many answers, along with MOH-Ho's responses to them, tickled funny bones around the room.

Games are best when there are prizes, and it's fun adding a little competition. Since MOH-Ho's choice of a Pampered Chef shower eliminated the gift opening portion of a standard shower, having her award prizes gave something for the guests to unwrap and 'ooo-and-ahh' a little bit over. Again I chose some food related items (for the candy jar game, winner took home the jar with the M&M's):

I decorated some of the wrapper with left over vellum strips from the vanilla extract & sugar favors project (which were scraps from the shower invite envelopes):

I also bought a half pound box of See's truffles as a raffle prize. To encourage guests to participate in the games, the game cards were used as raffle tickets for the final prize.

That's it, and it all worked out surprisingly really well!

What are your favorite shower games?