Preparation
The bride’s friends and family look forward to gathering at a bridal shower to honor the future Mrs. and welcome her into a new life as a married woman. While everyone looks forward to the food, drinks, gifts, and revelry, proper planning is key to ensuring this pre-wedding party goes smoothly. The first step in throwing a flawless party in honor of your bestie? Sending out the invitations.
Here, everything you need to know about the stationery for a bridal shower-from who gets an invite to when to send them.
BRIDAL SHOWER INVITATIONS WE LOVE
Early in the wedding planning process, the maid of honor should discuss details about the shower with the bride’s friends and family. One person in particular may decide to take on preparations, whether it’s the bride’s good friend, mom, sister, or the maid of honor herself. The host of the bridal shower is the obvious person to choose and send invitations, but they may decide to delegate tasks. If this is the case, they should pick a trusted member of the bridal party or family to mail invites.
Mail bridal shower invitations as early as possible to account for busy schedules and time conflicts. If many guests will be local, aim to send the invites four to six weeks before the event. A bridal shower involving many out-of-towners, on the other hand, requires more advanced notice. Six or eight weeks should be sufficient time for long-distance guests to make transportation and lodging arrangements.
Keep in mind that bridal shower invitations aren’t nearly as important as wedding invitations. Many attendees-especially family members and bridesmaids-will already know about the event beforehand. Still, the maid of honor (or the person planning the shower) can buy a nice set of cards from the stationery store or their favorite online retailer. They may also decide to send out a virtual or email invitation.
Before sending the invites, request a guest list from the bride. Then send out an invite to everyone on it-even if they helped plan the event. Since a bridal shower is an intimate celebration with the bride’s nearest and dearest, everyone invited should also be attending the ceremony and reception.
A bridal shower invitation should include the basics, like date, time, location, dress code, and RSVP information. Many bridal showers involve a gift exchange, so consider putting wedding registry information on the invite as well. If you feel it’s necessary, remind guests that a bridal shower is a family-friendly event; anything overtly raunchy can be reserved for the bachelorette party.
