How to Throw a Virtual Bridal Shower

Last week, Mallory wrote about how to make a graduate feel special in this season without proms, all-night parties, commencement speeches, graduation ceremonies, and mortarboard tosses.  But how do we celebrate our 2020 brides and grooms that have had to reschedule weddings and wedding-related festivities? Their disappointment must be truly immense let alone the costs and difficulties associated with rescheduling or coming up with alternatives. 

Yesterday, we helped throw our future sister-in-law Betsy a virtual bridal shower. She and our brother Will are getting married this August. COVID-19 has derailed their originally planned bachelor and bachelorette parties, showers, honeymoon plans, and more. And Betsy has handled the unknown and last-minute changes with grace, poise, and what appears to be a deep understanding of life’s bigger picture and most important values.  We want Betsy to feel like the special bride-to-be that she is regardless of COVID-19 and convey how excited we are to have her join our family.  

When I volunteered to help throw Betsy a bridal shower pre-COVID outbreak in the United States, I had never heard of a virtual shower. Here’s how we did it!

First, we sent out these cute “Bridal shower by Mail” invitations so all the guests could save the date on their calendar. There are a surprising number of virtual shower invitations options available on the web. How quickly commerce adapts! 

Five days before the virtual shower, we sent bridal shower guests curated gift boxes designed with Betsy’s wedding color – blush – in mind as well as her love for grapefruit flavor.  The gift boxes were put together by my mom and her two long-time fabulous friends, Leslie and Kathy. The giftboxes included homemade biscotti and Chex mix, pastel chocolates, grapefruit bath salts, handsewn face masks in floral fabric, champagne glasses, Sweet William seeds for planting (a fun nod to the groom!), pink candles, and Zoom instructions to join the bridal shower virtually. We used flat rate USPS shipping boxes so the weight of the gift box did not dictate cost.

We also included a cocktail-in-a-bag kit that we called “Betsy’s Grapefruit Margarita” complete with recipe card, fresh mini citrus, a small can of Q Grapefruit Mixer, straw, and cocktail napkin. Virtual attendees just had to add their own tequila and they could toast Betsy over Zoom. 

On the day of the shower, my mom, Leslie, Mallory, Laura (my brother Michael’s fiancé) and I went to the home of Betsy’s parents in our coordinating floral face masks. We joined the Zoom call, had everyone introduce themselves virtually, and watched Betsy open her beautiful shower gifts that guests had mailed prior to the shower. We made her rehearsal ribbon bouquet from the gifts and Zoom attendees toasted Betsy our bride-to-be. 

Laura also coordinated a fun shower game (not an oxymoron in this instance) by interviewing my brother Will on video prior to the shower. Her questions included: location of their first date (Il Terrazzo Carmine!); most annoying habit of groom (flosses his teeth in bed – gross! you can click for more info about what doctors say about this habit) and bride; favorite date night (long walk and then happy hour); favorite quality of bride (positivity) and groom (loyalty); favorite meal to eat; and favorite meal that Betsy cooks (any recipe from www.letswineaboutitsister.com! – thanks for the plug, Will!). Betsy was asked to answer the same question on the Zoom camera and then Laura played each of Will’s responses for bridal shower guests.  We all enjoyed getting to know more about Will and Betsy as a couple!

Admittedly a Zoom bridal shower was not what I originally dreamed of hosting for Betsy. But following Betsy’s lead, we were flexible, adapted, and put together a celebration that hopefully conveyed how excited we are about Will and Betsy’s upcoming wedding. 

Last fall, prior to Will and Betsy’s engagement my son Sam spontaneously, out-of-the-blue told Betsy, “I want you to be part of our family.” Slightly embarrassing for all parties at the time, but out of the mouths of babes…. Now I am able to say, “me too, Sam, me too!”