Wedding shower games are a good way to keep the get-together animated and “giggly.” They also help relieve the tension that went into the planning of the shower – issues like who to invite and what gifts to buy can be stressful. It’s not an absolute “must” to have wedding shower games because some women just like to linger and chat without having to participate in guessing games or gesturing for charades. Still, if you want to stick to tradition, then by all means draw up a list of easy wedding shower games that will delight your guests.

The thing with wedding shower games is to be original and fresh; if the average woman with a wide circle of friends attends, on the average, two to three wedding showers per year, imagine if she had to play the same wedding shower game over and over again. The best bet is to have at least a dozen games ready so that your guests can choose which one is the most fun or one that they’ve never played before.

Wedding Shower Games: Suggestions

Here are some easy games that do not require too much time and investment:

Jelly Bean Jar
The organizer fills a jar with colorful jelly beans and counts them. She puts the jar at the center of the table and asks everyone to jot down their estimate. The one who comes closest to the actual number of jelly beans is the winner. The winner decides to take home the jar or to distribute the candies around.

Rice and Safety Pins
This game may sound easy but it’s actually tough. Put three pounds of uncooked rice into a very large bowl. Put in about 20 small safety pins and mix well, ensuring that the safety pins “drown” in the rice and are not easily detected. Blindfold each participant and let her pick out as many safety pins as she can for 30 seconds. The one who picks all 20 safety pins in the first 30 seconds wins!

Sing-a-Song for Me
Get your wedding terminology up to speed! On bite-size pieces of paper, write down a wedding-related word for each paper. For example: love, honeymoon, bride, church, vow, dancing, cake, champagne, etc. Divide the invitees into two groups. The first person in group A picks a piece of paper. If she picks the word “love”, she has to sing some lyrics from a song with that word.

“Love is a many splendored thing” or “love is lovelier the second time around (watch out though as this might be the bride’s first marriage), or “love and marriage.”

When person A from group A finishes, person A from group B sings another song with the word “love” in it. When someone passes because she can’t think of any other songs to sing, the group who sang the “mostest” wins.

Taste Test
Go to a few ethnic stores and pick out foods that are rarely eaten or served at meals. For each food item, make sure you buy enough to pass around to all invitees. For instance, if you’re expecting 15 people, buy 15-20 pieces of that food item, in case there are some who ask for a second serving because they can’t guess the food. When the game starts, give each invitee a piece. The one who comes up with the most number of correct answers wins. Be careful, though with people who have nut allergies!

Here are a few suggestions for “exotic” foods:

• Nan bread or samosas – from India
• dried sweet plums – from China
• cumin spice – from the Middle East
• longan fruit – from China
• ice wine – from Canada (use small glasses)
• boiled peanuts – from Asia
• Spanish ham – from Spain
• Trifle dessert – from England
• soya nuts – from Asia
• meat roll or dumplings – from any Chinese store (also called “siopao” or “siomai”)

Getting to Know You

This is a great way to test how well friends of the bride know her. Taking turns, each invitee is asked to say something which she thinks describes the future bride. The future bride then says “true” or “false.” To make it more fun and entertaining, invitees are supposed to say something “outrageous” without of course offending the bride. The person that bags the highest number of correct guesses wins.

Here are a few suggestions – hope they generate some humor during your wedding shower games!

• “You own about half a dozen thongs of different colors”
• “You once failed a math test.”
• “Your idea of wasting time is to watch sitcoms.”
• “You sometimes imagine that Brad Pit is making love to you.”
• “You secretly went about finding out how much your engagement ring cost.”
• “The one thing you dislike about your future husband are his undershorts.”
• “You once lent your future husband some money which he never paid back.”
• “You have headaches at least every other week.”
• “You’re a sore loser at tennis.” (or whatever sports she engages in)
• “You’ve had about five arguments with your future groom about the wedding in the last 30 days.”
• “You adore your future mother-in-law.”
• “You must have thought about breaking up at least three times in the last 12 months.”

Here’s a wedding shower game that’s not really a game but more of a help tool for the future bride.

Prepare a bunch of envelopes and have each invited guest self-address it. Put all self-addressed envelopes in a box or basket. At the end of the shower, the bride picks up an envelope and the one who is picked gets to receive a prize. The envelopes are then handed to the bride to take home so she can write her thank you notes to those who attended the shower, saving her the trouble of looking up and writing down the addresses of each!

Wedding Shower Games: A Time to Bond

Remember the days when we looked forward to attending aquaintance parties with the hope of meeting a new friend? Wedding shower games fill that specific need for friends of the bride to share special moments like these. Some invitees may not know each other that well, so wedding shower games eliminate some of the awkwardness or shyness between people who hardly know each other. It is up to the future bride to introduce her guests and make sure everyone feels that they’ve gained a friend or important contact when the shower’s over.

Females seem to have that naturally ability to bond. Wedding shower games facilitate this, so the more innovative and entertaining they are, the more fun everyone will have, liking each other better. Make sure no one feels left out.

Put a lot of thought and planning into your wedding shower games. If there will be invitees from different cultures, find out beforehand whether or not some games are appropriate. This way, you don’t ruffle any feathers!