1 . He Said, She Said

How to Play: Hand out “He Said She Said” cards and guests can guess fun facts about the couple, like who said “I love you” first, who is more forgetful and who is the better dancer. You can make your own cards, or you can find some beautiful options on Etsy. —Anna Kesten of My Chic Nest

2. Find the Guest

Every guest gets a checklist where they have to find someone who has a certain characteristic. Circulate the room to find another guest who…

• Has been married ten years or longer
• Speaks a foreign language
• Has won $50 or more in the last 12 months
• Has more than three kids
• Is wearing blue shoes
• Has more than three pets
• Vacationed within the last three months
• etc.

Here’s an actual game card you can get ready-made on Etsy. Everyone will have a ball chatting up the room to find out who wears contact lenses, who traveled over 50 miles to attend the shower and if anyone doesn’t have a Facebook account. —Kim Forrest of WeddingWire

3. Where Were We?

4. Musical Matching

5. Interactive Scavenger Hunt

An interactive scavenger hunt will get guests up and on their feet while getting to know one another better in a relaxed yet competitive setting. It’s an especially good idea if you’re hosting a co-ed shower. If the event is in the couple’s hometown or clues like, “This is where the couple had their first date” or “This is where the bride and groom shared their first kiss” are usually a fun place to start. Up the fun factor by booking limousines to take everyone around town and having a cocktail waiting at each stop. —Kim Sayatovic of Belladeux Event Design

7. Who Can Make the Best Cocktail?

Set up a full bar, label all ingredients with cards, and have teams compete to concoct the best wedding cocktail. The bride can then choose her favorite drink and the team chosen gets bragging rights at the bar. —Brianne Noonan of Pretty Polite Print Boutique

8. The Nearly-Wed Game

The bride answers questions about her relationship (“Who paid on the first date?”), which the groom has responded to on video earlier. After the bride responds, someone plays the clip with the groom’s answer. Nosy guests and oversharers will love this one, but remember, there is such a thing as too much information—keep it (relatively) clean.

9. Paper Bride

Guests divide into teams of three or four. One member of each team is the model; the others construct a wedding dress using toilet paper. The models strut; the bride picks her favorite look. Fans of Project Runway will be especially entertained. Pro tip? Use triple-ply.

10. Wedding Word Scramble

List off scrambled words associated with the couple, the bride and the wedding. Whichever guest can untangle the words the fastest wins!

11. Vow Mad Libs

Print out traditional vows, leaving blanks for nouns, verbs, and adjectives. A bridesmaid asks each guest for a word. At the end of the party, the bride reads “her” wedding vows. Nerds, literary types, and anyone with an online Scrabble addiction will eagerly play this game. For an added bonus, you can ask the groom to arrive at the end of the party and hold a mock ceremony with the funniest vows. Tee-hee.

12. Who’s That Couple?

Make color printouts of celebrity couples and leave one at each place setting. Ask guests to identify both people in the photo. Don’t make it too easy—the less obvious the better. Think Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis, Chris Pratt and Anna Faris, and Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally.

13. Charades: Wedding Movies Edition

Write names of wedding movies on cards. Divide the party into two teams. Players act out titles to their own team members, who must guess the answer in three minutes or less. To really make this work, go heavy on the cocktails. Here are some movies to get you started:

• 27 Dresses
• Mamma Mia!
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding
• Wedding Crashers
• The Wedding Singer

14. Why Do We Do That?

There are so many wedding traditions that we just do, without really knowing why. This is one of those unique bridal shower games that’s fun and teaches you a thing or to. Make a list of wedding traditions like having a designated ring finger.

Then have the players choose an answer from a corresponding answer and see who can guess the most correctly. (If you’re wondering, prior to modern science, people believed there was a vein on our ring fingers that led straight to our heart. Awww.)

15. Purse Scavenger Hunt

• hair tie
• pen
• Band-aid
• lotion
• red lipstick
• mascara
• fast food receipt
• candy
• gum
• phone charger
• kid’s toy
• business card
• pepper spray
• penny
• tampon

16. Put a Ring On It

This is one of those fun bridal shower games that you’ll play all party long. Each bride gets a plastic ring to wear at the start of the shower. Whenever a guest says “bride” or “wedding,” another guest is allowed to steal her ring. Whoever ends the bridal shower with the most rings wins!

17. Bride and Groom Trivia

• Where did the bride and groom meet?
• Who said “I love you” first?
• Where are they going on their honeymoon?
• How did he propose?
• How many kids does the couple want to have?
• What was the first real fight about?
• What does the bride love most about the groom?

18. Celebrity Wives

Gather the names of your favorite celebrity wives, then write each name on a single index card. Ask each guest to tape a card to her forehead—no peeking!—then have others describe who she “is” until she guesses her party-long celeb status. Who wouldn’t want to be Beyoncé for a day?

19. Whose Memory?

There are a lot of treasured memories within a room of BFFs. Have everyone write down a favorite memory between themselves and the bride. Put the memories in a basket and have the the bride read them aloud. Then, the guests can guess who each memory belongs to.

20. Fantasy Date

Each guest writes the name of her dream celebrity date on a card. Everyone tries to match the date with the guest. For more advanced play, have guests fill the other side of the card with their celeb date from hell; you have to guess not only who wrote it, but also which side is which.

21. How Well Does the Bride Really Know the Groom?

Compile a list of tricky questions about the groom. Have the guests how many questions the future Mrs. will be able to answer correctly. Whomever guesses the most questions correctly wins! This is a great bridal shower game idea, and one that you can find ready-to-go on Etsy! Here’s a sneak peek at some of the questions that just might stump the bride:

• If the groom could meet one famous person, who would it be?
• What is the groom’s dream car?
• What’s the groom’s favorite pizza topping?
• What’s the groom’s favorite sports team?
• If the groom was home alone for an evening, what would he feed himself for dinner?
• What was the make of the groom’s first?
• What was the groom’s first job?
• When the groom was little, what did he want to be when he grew up?

22. Date Night Ideas

This is one of those fun, but also useful, bridal shower game ideas. Have pretty card stock and glitter pens ready to go. Pass them out and have everyone write down their favorite date night suggestion for the happy couple. After everyone reads their suggestion aloud, deposit them into a cute box that the bride can take home and use for future Friday nights!

23. Pin the Mustache on the Groom

This is exactly what you think it is: a fun twist on pin the tail on the donkey. Put a picture of the groom up on a wall, blindfold each guest and give them a turn to pin a mustache on the groom.

24. Pen a Poem

Grab and blank sheet of paper and ask a guest to write a single line of a romantic poem dedicated to the couple. The fold the paper over, hiding the guest’s phrase, and pass the paper to another guest with the same instructions. Make your way through all the guests, then, in your best dramatic stage voice, read the (disjointed) poem the brides’ guests have dedicated to her great love.

25. Tie the Knot

To round out our list of unique bridal shower games, we had to include a game of tying cherry stems into knots. Give each guest a little bowl of cherries and see who can tie the most knots with cherry stems in two minutes. For a little extra fun, soak the cherries in vanilla vodka overnight.

26. What’s in Your Cell Phone: Bridal Shower Edition

For this game, the guests will whip out their phones and for a cellular scavenger hunt. The ladies will search their phones and get points for each they can find. For example, one to five points for things like:

• A selfie
• A video
• A text from the bride-to-be
• Having a screen saver of a person
• A photo of the bride-to-be
• Or even more points for:
• A battery life of more than 50%
• Having zero unread emails
• Having the wedding date saved in your calendar
• A photo of the bridal shower
• Here’s an Etsy printable of this game.

27. Cold Feet

Place a bunch of toy rings inside buckets or bowls of ice water. Guests must plunge their feet into the icy water and pull the rings out with their toes. Whoever can get the most rings out in two minutes wins.

28. Musical Bouquet

Think musical chairs, but with a bouquet. Pass it around the circle. When the music stops, whoever has the bouquet is eliminated. The last woman standing wins.

29. Pictionary: Wedding Edition

Divide the guests into teams of two and settle in for a rousing round of pictionary. Remember that classic? Each team writes down words on slips of paper and the other team must draw whatever the word is and get their teammates to guess it. In the wedding edition, of course, all the words must be related to the wedding. Think “ring bearer” or “wedding toast” or “honeymoon.”

30. Telephone Wedding Toast

Playing phone is always funny—and it’s made even more enjoyable when you start the “call” with a toast to the bride. Have each guest whisper the well wish to the bride, then sit back and listen to the funniest toast ever when the message reaches the last guest.

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Source: by Whitney C. Harris and Kristi Kellogg to Brides Magazine