5 Fun Bridal Shower Games (With Cocktail Pairings)
When hosting a bridal shower, planning an activity for the bride and guests to enjoy is a welcome addition that is sure to create lasting memories. To add a splash of excitement and a dash of sophistication your party, we've put together some fun and silly games that are guaranteed fun and will help to acquaint guests faster than mingling over glasses of Champagne. We've also upped the ante, pairing each game with a fabulous cocktail recipe that will make even a simple game of bridal bingo a whole lot more interesting.
Quizzes
Quizzes are the perfect bridal shower activity because they engage guests and are designed with good fun in mind. Another great thing about them is that they allow party guests to participate without ever having to leave the comfort of their own chair.
1. How Well Do You Know the Bride and Groom?
Pair With: Wedding Cake Martini
Summary: Bring out guests' competitive side with this fun trivia game that tests how well the guests know the bride and groom. It's also a good chance for the newer family members to learn more about either the bride or groom.
Recommended Number of Players: 8 or more. (The bigger the group, the better!)
Supplies: Pre-made questionnaires about the bride and groom, pens or pencils, and prizes. To make the questionnaires, the bride should come up with between 10 and 15 questions about her groom. Vary the difficulty for these. Her bridesmaids should do the same for her. Make sure both the bride and groom supply the right answers for each question!
Set Up: Print your questionnaires (without the answers) and print a separate key for the person who will be scoring.
How to Play: When you're ready, pass out both of the questionnaires for guests to answer. Whoever has the most correct answers wins a prize. You can do one prize for the bride's survey, another for the groom, and one big winner, if you'd like.
2. How Well Does the Bride Know the Groom?
Pair With: The Blushing Bride Cocktail
Summary: After you test your guests' know-how about the bride and groom, give the woman of the hour (aka the bride-to-be) a quiz of her own. We don't know any bride who isn't up for showing off how well she knows her husband-to-be, so make sure the questions are extra hard. This quiz puts the bride in the spotlight, and gets the guests involved, too. It's also a ton of fun and often produces a lot of laughs.
Recommended Number of Players: 1 (Bride only!)
Supplies: Pre-made quiz about the groom, pens or pencil for recording answers, prize(s).
Set Up: One of the bridesmaids (or a few) comes up with 10-15 questions (on the harder side!) about the groom and sends them to him to be answered. The questions are then printed out for the bride to ask (while her bridesmaids keep the answer key).
How to Play: Once the shower is underway, a bridesmaid asks the rest of the shower guests to guess how many answers the bride will get correct. Give them a fair shot and let them see the questions, first! (You don't have to show the answers, though.)
After the bride has opened or gifts (or at any point of the party you choose) have the bride sit down in front of her guests. The maid of honor, or all of the bridesmaids in turn, then poses the questions to the bride, keeping track of all the answers! The person(s) who comes closest to predicting the correct number of answers win a prize. And if the bride gets all of the questions right, make sure you give her a prize, too!
Adapt By: Adding life lines. Allow the bride to give a shout out to the mother of the groom or sister of the groom. Another idea might be to poll the quests on what they think the answer would be.
3. The Almost-Newlywed Game
Pair With: Mr. Right Cocktail
Summary: Test the bride and groom on their compatibility with this game. Be careful to choose questions that both are comfortable with and get their seal of approval before you pose the questions in front of all their loved ones. You wouldn't want to cause any fights or embarrassing moments!
Recommended Number of Players: 2 (bride and groom), plus guests as audience.
Supplies: 10 – 15 answered questions, pens or pencils for recording answers, and prizes.
Set Up: The bridesmaids come up with 15-20 questions for the groom in advance, which they send to him to answer. The bride should answer these same questions at the shower.
How to Play: At the shower, first ask the guests to guess how many answers they think that the bride and groom will have in common. Then, have the bride sit down in front and have her bridesmaids/maid of honor then pose the same set of questions the groom answered prior to the celebration to her. After the bride has answered, share the groom's answer with her and the guests. Whoever comes closest to the correct guess of how many questions they'd have compatible answers for wins a prize.
Other Activities
4. Love Poetry
Pairs With: Catch the Bouquet Cocktail
Summary: Get the mood at a bridal shower with this sweet game. It's all about love, puts the spotlight on the bride, and gets the guests involved.
Recommended Number of Players: 20+
Supplies: A poem on *love.
Set Up: None
How to Play: Have one of the bridesmaids at the shower read a poem (preferably about love) and then guests get points if they are wearing some of the key words in the poem (red shirt, barrette, etc.), or are showing in some way the imagery presented (pregnant, hair color, etc.). Whichever guest has the most points wins a prize.
*Note: Though it's fine to search for and use a poem already written, we like the idea of the bridesmaids coming together to write a personalized one about the bride and groom. Be creative!
5. Bridal Memory Game
Pair With: The Last Fling Cocktail
Summary: Take a trip down memory lane with this reminiscent (and often revealing!) game. It can oftentimes get a tad bit embarrassing for the bride, depending on the memory, so it's not good for the easily-embarrassed bride. You may want to ask guests to keep a few present people in mind as they decide what memory they'd like to share with all the other party guests so guessing isn't too difficult.
Recommended Number of Players: N/A
Ages: 16+
Supplies: Note cards for each guest, pens or pencils for writing, and a hat or another container for collecting the cards.
Set Up: Either pass out the cards to guests as they come in, or better yet, have piles of cards with a pen at each table.
How to Play: Give each guest a piece of paper and pen and have her (anonymously) write down a memory she shares with the bride. One of the bridesmaids then collects the papers and places them into a hat or some other container. When it comes time to play the game, have the bride pull notes from the hat and read them aloud. The whole party then guesses who the bride went skinny-dipping in a pool in Miami with, sang karaoke at 4 a.m. with, etc. (It's harder to guess when guests who are the culprit participate and try to cast suspicion on others.)
Adapt By: Making this a more silent game. Pass out paper to have guests write down their suspicions after the bride has read the memory — and have the bride write down names, too. After all are read, go back and read off who was the memory maker in each scenario. The person who guessed correctly the most times wins a prize.