How to Host A Virtual Bridal or Baby Shower

I’ve heard of so many people cancelling their weddings, bridal showers and baby showers these days because of the corona virus. In fact, I just got a message today from a friend telling me that she was cancelling her baby shower. Then, at the store the other day I overheard a cashier talking about having to cancel her sister’s shower, and how sad she was. HOWEVER, there is good news! You can throw a BOMB, and I mean BOMB bridal or baby shower virtually! I know this because we did it.

This post is going to be a bit longer than usual because I really want to give you everything you need to know to throw an amazing online shower! My mom and I hosted a bridal shower for my sis in law about a week ago, and honestly we all thought it was just as special as a regular shower! Because it was online, we could invite people who wouldn’t normally be able to come, like her mom and sister who live in another province. My mom also delivered what we call a ‘shower in a box’ which was the best part!! I’ll get to that later!

Ps. I also wrote a post on the Disneyland theme side of this shower that includes all of the printables we used! Find it here!

Okay, I’m going to break this post up into sections of everything you need to make a virtual shower special. Let’s get started!!

How to Use Zoom

We should probably talk about Zoom first. This is what we used to host the shower. It is free for 40 minutes with up to 100 people! Our shower was two hours, so we used my husband’s account because it is free for all students. You can probably find a students account to use 😉 You could also just pay for it, it’s not much. We put the zoom link on the invitation so that everybody could just log on when it was time. If you want a free option, I’ve also heard that google hangouts works well.

On Zoom there is always a host who can control everyones screens, I was the host for our shower, so I thought I’d give you a few tips.

1. Use the ‘pin screen’ function. When you pin someones screen it makes it the main screen for everyone else. So, when we went around and introduced everyone, I would pin each persons screen while they were talking so that everyone could see.
2. Use the ‘mute all’ function. When I would try to get everyones attention to let them know we were starting to open gifts for example, I would mute everyone so that I was the only one that anyone could hear. This was handy as it eliminated background noise while I was explaining games etc.
3. Use the ‘virtual background’ feature. When everyone was logging on I set my virtual background as the Disney castle (our theme was Disneyland) so that it was the first thing people saw when they logged on. This was just a little detail to reinforce the theme and make it feel more special.

Gifts

You may be wondering how to handle the gifts portion for a virtual shower. We gave people three options which we included on the save the date. These three options were:

1. Contribute to the large group gift. Guests can send the host money via paypal, cash app, venmo etc. and the host will buy a larger gift on behalf of everyone who contributed.
2. Order the gift online to the address of wherever the shower will be hosted.
3. Drop off a gift before the shower.

The guests at our shower used all of these options, and they all worked great. Jess (my sis in law) opened all of her gifts on the zoom call for everyone to watch (I pinned her screen so everyone could see). It worked just like a regular shower!

Shower in a Box

This was in my opinion what made the shower so special. It was my moms stroke of genius. Basically, she texted out a save the date invite in advance. Then whoever would rsvp that they were coming she delivered a package to them the day before the shower, with a note telling them not to open it until we could all open them together on the zoom call.

Inside were decorations, snacks, games, and party favors for each guest. This made it feel so special as each person got to decorate their space, have special snacks and we could play group games with the supplies that they got.

Below I’ll explain each element of the box. Our shower was Disneyland themed, but these elements could easily be adapted to any theme.

What to Put in Your Shower in a Box:

1. Snacks – We included a chocolate dipped rice krispy treat and a little bag of homemade trail mix. These were two snacks that we could make ahead of time and they wouldn’t go bad. We told everyone to eat their snacks while Jess was opening gifts.
2. Party Hat – We used minnie ears to go with our theme, but you could use anything that matches your theme. It was so cute to see everyone wearing matching ears on the zoom call!
3. Decoration – My mom made these mickey garlands for everyone to hang up behind them so that we all had the same decoration, it made it feel more like we were together. It also made everyone’s space feel special!
4. Games! We played four games which I’ll get to later, but the games were great at getting everyone to participate, laugh and have fun. They were my personal favorite part of the shower.
5. A Craft. We got this printable coloring sheet from Etsy for everyone to color throughout the shower. On the note on the outside of the box we asked everyone to have coloring supplies with them at the shower.
6. Party Favor – My mom made these sweet little bracelets with charms she bought at Michaels. They were the perfect little touch!

Decorating

Just because nobody is physically coming over doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t decorate! If nothing else, it makes it more special for the honoree! After all, it’s most important that they feel special! We decorated the space where Jess (my sis in law) would sit, everyone could see the decorations on Zoom, and it just made it feel much more special. Bonus, it’s way easier to decorate than a regular shower because you only have to decorate what people will see on Zoom 😉

My mom made a wreath to go above her head, some cupcakes, a little sign and flowers, and then of course all of the gifts. How pretty does it look though?! Jess also got a ‘shower in a box’ like all of the other guests. Her minnie ears had a veil on them though 🙂

The Games

The games we played were all Disneyland themed, but if you are doing a different theme, it’s okay, all of these games can be adjusted to any theme. They also all worked great over Zoom!

You can get the printables for the games we used here!

The Four Games We Played:

1. The Emoji Game: This is where you use emojis and the guests have to guess what they represent, such as movies, songs etc. In our case: Disneyland rides. I gave everyone a few minutes to fill out their sheets, then I read out the answers and had everyone guess before I shared the answer. It was fun and you could use this game with any theme!
2. The ‘Find It’ Game: This was a fun one! I would read out an item and everyone would have to run to go find it, and whoever showed it to their camera first won!
3. Pictionary: Everyone got a sheet with an area to draw and a line where we wrote a different Disney movie on every sheet. Each person got 30 seconds to draw the movie, then they would hold it up to their camera and everyone would guess. The first person to guess correctly gets a point!
4. Love Song Game: We had a sheet with Disney love songs that guests would have to match to the Disney movie. You could easily just do regular love songs and match them up to the artist! I gave everyone a few minutes to fill out their sheet and then I read out the answers.

The Invitations

I’ve talked throughout this post about the invitations, but I thought I’d clarify here. We sent out save the dates via text (shown below). On the save the date was the date and time as well as the gifting options. Whoever replied to that save the date confirming that they would be attending got a ‘a shower in a box’ delivered to them the day before. On top of the shower in a box was a formal invite giving them the Zoom link, as well as telling them what they needed for the shower (a writing utensil, tape, and colored pencils).

Save The Date:

Formal Invite:

Alrighty! I think thats everything you need to know in order to know how to host an AMAZING virtual bridal or baby shower!! The shower we threw truly felt so special even though we were all apart. I hope this will make this strange time feel a little more normal! I also think that even when quarantine is over this will be still be a great option for those of you with family who are far away!!

I’d love it if you would let me know if you throw a virtual shower with our shower in a box idea! You can tag or DM me @mikylacreates.