Bridal shower gifts

Could you drive? That would give people the option of giving physical gifts (and many people won't get the memo - "oh, it's *just* one mixer/food processor/whatever, it won't be that hard for them to take it home") and alleviate your problem.

View Quoted Comment We would really prefer not to😅 It’s about 16 hours with no stops and we did it in July when we moved down here. We also can’t take too much time off for work so would prefer to just fly down Fri-Sun.

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That makes it more difficult (and hopefully everyone gets the memo). We didn't at my shower (for which I was grateful) but I know there are all kinds of bridal shower games you can play - design a dress from toilet paper (or maybe crepe paper so as not to trigger anyone after the toilet paper shortage of 2020) or make a bouquet. You could do a "bring your favorite recipe" kind of thing (if you guys cook). Other than that I might just google activities for bridal showers.

If nothing else, there's always food and mingling.

Something we considered doing is that everyone brought a card with a picture of their gift inside to the shower and then shipped the actual gift. That way they can see you "open" their gift and acknowledge the thought, generosity, etc but you don't actually have the physical gift. Another idea is to do a gift card shower where people buy you gift cards to your favorite places.

View Quoted Comment Ooo the gift cards sound cool! We are also moving into our first home soon so we don’t know exactly what we need/want so gift cards might be nice to save for that!

One of daughter's baby showers was about 1000 miles from where they live and we were flying. In the invitations, the hostess asked guests to please ship bulky gifts to the new parents' home, but we each took an extra empty large suitcase when we flew up (a benefit of flying Southwest -- two free bags per person ). Guests who bought the big things like the highchair, car seat, etc., had those gifts delivered to their home, but included a photo and/or gift receipt in the card so daughter "opened" their gifts along with the others. Guests who brought soft goods like clothes and linens she opened there and we were able to fit everything in to our suitcases for the flight home. Whoever is hosting should handle communicating to guests the preferences/suggestions.

I was also going to suggest having people put a picture of what they got in the card, if you want the experience of opening "gifts" without actually opening gifts.

As for ideas of what to do instead, games always kill time and there are plenty where you can have printouts put on the table before everyone gets there and people can work on them at their own pace. Games I've played at showers recently include Bridal Emoji guessing game (you have to guess the word/phrase based on the emoji used), Name that Love Song, What's in your Purse, and How Well Do you Know the Bride/Groom.

You can also, depending on the event space, set up a little photo booth for people to take pictures through the day. We did this at my shower with a Polaroid camera so people could either put their picture in the guest book or just take it home with them!

The really good thing is, not opening gifts gives you so much more time to mingle and chat with your guests! I feel like I barely got to spend time with anyone and thank people for coming at my shower because there just wasn't enough time. So don't feel too obligated to fill up the time with activities!