Ideas for a Bridal Shower

My beautiful sister-in-law, Amanda, is getting married this August.  So a few weekends ago, her bridesmaids, myself included, put together a neat little bridal shower for her.

I love being creative & crafty, so I put together a few things for it.

1.  Advice cards for the bride.

All you need for these are index cards (I chose blank white cards), ribbon, round clasps, stamp pads, a rubber stamp. and a whole punch.

• I used a computer and printed out “Advice for the bride…” on the notecards.  I fooled around with the font, font size and layout until I found one that worked.  I printed some extras just in case they came out crooked, which many did.
• Then I punched holes in the upper left-hand corner
• Following that, I took my rubber stamp and stamped over the writing on the front of the card making sure that I used a lighter color than the color of the writing.  Then I flipped it over and used a purple stamp pad and stamped the back corners of the index card with just a small portion of the stamp.  This allowed for room on the back of the card for the shower attendee to write some advice for the bride!
• After the shower was over, we collected the cards, put them all together with the clasp and added the ribbon.  That’s it!

2.  Dear {Amanda} Book

All you need to make this is a little help and cooperation from the bridal party.

• First, I asked each bridesmaid, Mother of the Bride and Groom to write a letter to Amanda and send it to me in a Word document.  I included Miss Karlyanne too, who is the flower girl.  She hasn’t mastered the keyboard yet, so I offered my assistance in getting her thoughts on paper.  :)
• Then I asked for a digital picture of them with Amanda and just had them email it to me.
• I choose to use one of Amanda & Sean’s engagement pictures for the front of the book.
• I printed the book through Shutterfly and choose a 8×8 book.  I kept it simple used their templates to put the book together.  On the left-hand side I upload the picture and on the right-hand side I included the letter that each person from the bridal party wrote.
• I had some extra pages at the end of the book and this was perfect area for the bridal shower attendees to leave some love and support for Amanda.
• Make sure you order this early enough because I procrastinated ordered the book later then planned and got the book the day before the shower!  Next time, I’ll prepare a little better so I don’t have to stress waiting for it to be shipped on-time.

We also framed several of Amanda and Sean’s engagement pictures and had one on each table, which is another great way to use engagement photos!

Amanda’s bridal party is a wonderful group of girls and I think we pulled off a lovely and special bridal shower.  Amanda, I hope you felt loved!!!

The countdown is on for your big day!