Throwing a baby shower for my best friend

Recently one of my best friends announced she was pregnant and due in a few months– 2 of my girl friends and I decided to gather our ideas together and organise a baby shower for her. I hope she is not reading this (I don’t think she is) but here are some great baby shower ideas we have come up with (and I have added some tips too):

What you need to think about when preparing & budgeting for a baby shower:

1. Location
2. Invites & Stationary
3. Decor & Flowers
4. Food & Drink
5. Entertainment, games & prizes

1. We were debating when to throw the baby shower. Initially, we wanted to throw the party once the baby was born but we thought it would be to hectic for the mum-to-be so we have settled to do it in a 3 months’ time (which is a 4-6 weeks) before she is due.

We decided to throw the baby shower at my house simply because we didn’t want to worry the mum-to-be and we can make it a surprise … ooohhh, don’t you just love surprises.

2. After doing a lot of research of theme for baby showers, we all really liked the ‘nursery rhyme & baby names’ theme. We decided to use the themes to send the invitations – every invite said: ‘Once upon a time there was a girl called ….’ where we outlined the details of the party. We asked everyone to bring their favourite book or nursery rhyme and our plan is to go over these at the party to make sure the mum-to-be is familiar with all the words.

3. The decorations will be around the theme too. I plan to put lots of nursery rhyme words around my house and get her to sing them all – bring a bit of fun to the party.

In the invite I asked members to buy baby shower gifts no more than £20 and if there was a way they could stick to the theme it would be great but not necessary. I will get all the presents the day before the party and hang them round the house all wrapped – the mum-to-be will have to guess what the present is and who it’s from.

4. I will be serving light food & drinks too.

5. The best part will be giving the mum-to-be challenges in a certain time frame: For example, I am planning to buy a doll and get her to change a baby’s nappy in 15 seconds(being a first time mum it will be great to watch) – I need to think of a few other ideas.

During the party, I will also be playing pass-the-parcel so everyone will have a chance to win small goodies. We will also be playing ‘sweet sweet baby’ which is a fun game – every guest will be picking a word or phrase out of a hat and they need to relate it to pregnancy or parenting.

I am still in the planning process and it’s all going well. Can you guys suggest anything else I can do? I am looking forward to the party and will let you all know how it goes.