If you’re looking for an easy-to-follow virtual bridal and wedding shower planner and timeline, stick around! Below, we’ll take you through pulling off the ultimate online bash step-by-step. From sending out the invites to figuring out the virtual bridal shower party food & favors situation, we’ve got you covered. Let’s get started!
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Virtual Bridal And Wedding Showers Planners And Timeline
Organizing a bridal or wedding shower is not easy, even though we’re talking about doing it online. Happily, we prepared some great tips, to help you stay organized and have a wonderful party.
It’s important to have a timeline, manage to do everything you want and of course, have a wonderful time. In general, bridal and wedding showers are quite short, so you’ll need to fit all the activities in a two to four hours time frame.
First, you’ll need something to get organized. Below are our two favorite options! Choose what works best for you, then we’ll dive into the perfect virtual bridal shower itinerary!
FYI, this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we earn a small commission at no extra charge to you.
#1 Grab a virtual bridal shower agenda book
If you have a hard time keeping things organized, a little virtual bridal shower planner book is a good thing to have on hand. You can buy a party planning organizer like the one pictured here, or even just use a notebook.
#2 Use a printable planner to stay organized
Printable planners are all the rage right now, so you should have zero problems finding one you love. I made this little worksheet for you with plenty of space for notes about what you sent and when. Feel free to print it out! Again, just click on the image for the full-size version.
Planning a virtual bridal and wedding shower shouldn’t be hard, and as long as you are relaxed and you manage to include all your favorite activities, there’s nothing that can go wrong
Related: Pampered for Your Virtual Wedding
Related: Pampered for Your Virtual Wedding! Without further ado, let’s go ahead and take a look at the perfect virtual bridal shower schedule.
Before The Party
Since you’ll likely be mailing out key items like favors and decorations, your pre-party prep needs to begin a bit earlier than it would for an in-person event. We’ll give you a general virtual bridal shower timeline , along with some considerations for each stage of planning,
Sending Out The Invitations
In order to make sure that everyone will be able to attend the party, you need to send out the virtual bridal shower invitations. Luckily, there are a couple of ways you can do that. You can either send them virtual bridal shower invitations or send the physical invitations to their houses. We love the option pictured above. You can even grab a virtual bridal shower PowerPoint template here and use that to make them!
If you really want to send them out, you can reach out to any company who makes wedding invitations, and they will do everything while you stay back and continue planning. Just make sure your guests will have enough time to prepare for the party.
- IMPORTANT UPDATE: Spelling has been fixed, Add the place of bride's name
- STYLE: Features a sweet and simple greenery leaf pink floral design and rose gold foil "Bridal Shower"— perfect for a rustic or garden Rose Gold themed shower!
- FULL SET: Pack of 25 Invitations + 25 white Envelopes+25 Stickers. Each invitation is sized at 5" x 7".
Timing
Even though your party is online, people still need time to shop for gifts and clear their schedule. Regardless of your delivery method, invites should go out between 4-6 weeks before the party. That said, if it’s a last-minute bash, 2 weeks should be sufficient.
Sending Out The Favors
At a normal party, you’d hand out the party favors directly. In a virtual bridal shower however, you will need to send them out before the party, so you know everyone will get theirs. It’s one of the things you need to have set up before the party starts, and you can even send them out along with the invitations. We’ve got you covered with these cute suggestions: of virtual bridal shower party favors.
Timing
Favors should arrive right around the day of the party. However, with the uncertainty of shipping times and delays all around, I’d actually order them to arrive a week before the party just to be safe. Tell your guests to wait until the big day before opening them!
However, if all of your guests are local, you could always save a bit of money on shipping by having everything delivered to your house. Then, the day before the party, just deliver the favor bags to everyone.
Make sure you stick to social distancing guidelines, of course. Leave them on their doorstep (make sure they’re home, though, so no one snatches their goodies).
If you’re ordering favors online, pay close attention to shipping times. For personalized gifts, you’ll also want to read the fine print regarding production time. If you’re really in a time crunch, Amazon has a lot of cute stuff that’s Prime eligible.
These bottle openers, for example, are adorable! Send them along with a bottle of wine for each guest to enjoy at the party. Remember, since they’re already home, you don’t have to worry about drinking and driving issues!
- IMPORTANT — The items are not assembled. You will have to put the sticker on the tag, cut the ribbon, and tie it to the key and tag. The item includes: 52 keys + 52 tags + 52 stickers + 75ft ribbon.
- HEAVY DUTY & STURDY — key made from stronger zamak-5 metal zinc alloy, electroplated to prevent rusty. Larger key 3.3"x 1.3" (8.4cm x 3.3cm), about the size of a car key. Work to pop off bottle cap and easy slide onto a keychain.
- You may ADD YOUR PERSONALIZED MESSAGE to the black tag (blank on both sides) by using a colorful or white pen. Tag material: stiff 350gsm card stock (does not bleed & smear). Size: 3.74" x 1.8" (9.5cm x 4.5cm). Larger writable area: 3.15" x 1.8" (8cm x 4.5cm), more easy to write on compared to smaller size tag.
Choosing The Decor And Zoom Background
The decorations part can be a little tricky when it comes to a virtual party. Here too, you have a couple of options. For starters, you can buy the decor and send some over to your virtual guests. This will provide them with some cute bridal and wedding shower favors, and you’ll have the same decor to keep the mood up.
The other option is to choose a cute Zoom background for everyone to use. Personally, I prefer this option because you can find tons of free backgrounds online, or even make your own in a photo editing program. In case you didn’t know, Zoom background images should be 1920×1080 px, and it’s best to go with a hi-res image.
Here are a few that we whipped up for you! Click on the images to download the full-size version.
During The Party
Honestly, planning is the easy part. Figuring out how to keep everyone feeling like they’re all together at the same party when they’re surrounded by distractions in their own home is trickier. Take a look at the party timeline, along with tips to pull it all off.
Signing on (and signing in)
Even though your guests are signing on from home- so no one will be late because of traffic!- you’ll still want to give them a little bit of buffer time (pun intended) before starting the party. Technology is never 100% reliable, after all.
Use this time to have all of the guest sign the virtual bridal shower guest book. Don’t have one? There are plenty of online options, like My Digital Guestbook and what not. Alternatively, you can have everyone email or text a little note, then print them out and put them into an actual guest book.
Timing
There’s no hard and fast rule on this, but I’d say the first 20 minutes. Even if everyone “arrives” on time, that gives guests a chance to catch up with people they haven’t talked to in a while, get settled, and so on.
Serving The Food
The food can be a complicated topic when it comes to virtual bridal showers, but there are things you can do. If your friends love to cook, then you can all prepare the same recipe. Maybe for your favors, you can send out some cute herbs and spices gift sets.
If no one wants to cook, then you have three choices:
- For local guests: talk to a catering company to see if they’re doing Zoom party food deliveries. Some offer this service, as they’re trying to supplement their income during a time when parties are super limited.
- Give everyone a Door Dash, Uber Eats, etc gift card so that they can order their own food for the party. It won’t feel as “cohesive,” but at least you can all eat at the same time.
- Skip the big meal and just have a cocktail hour party. You can send out gourmet gift baskets with tasty snacks ahead of time, or just send the booze!
Timing
It’s always best if you manage to serve the food somewhere at the beginning of the event. This way, you can be sure that everyone is patient and enjoying their time with you.
Set Up The Games
Since the games will be one of the most time consuming activities, you may want to assign about half of the party to them. You can check out some wonderful bridal shower game ideas, and make sure that everyone is having a blast.
You can also play some of the classics! Things like Pictionary, Two Truths and a Lie, and even Truth or Dare translate well to Zoom parties. Last, you can even create something personalized for your event, like a “who knows the bride best” trivia game. This will surely bring a smile to everyone’s faces.
Timing:
As I said, plan for games to take up about half of the party. Start them after the food, but before the gifts.
Receiving The Gifts
In a virtual bridal shower, receiving gifts is not going to be the usual activity. Because of this, you shouldn’t stress too much about it, as some guests will order something to be delivered, others will send virtual gift cards, while some may even send some money directly. We rounded up 2 guides to help you: virtual bridal shower gift box ideas for the bride and virtual bridal shower gift ideas for the guests. Be sure to check them out for inspiration.
Timing
After the party, and there’s a very good reason for that. Right now, times are very tough for so many people. Some guests may only be able to afford a tiny gift, while others are in a better position right now. Some are scraping pennies together just to survive and many not be able to afford anything at all.
Watching you open gifts can what should have been a fun little escape from reality becomes a crushing reminder of just how tight things are. So, it’s just in better taste to wait until after the party. Instead, finish off the event by a couple of minutes to thank everyone in advance for their presents and their presence!
If the bride really wants to open gifts in front of everyone, then save the activity for the end of the party. That way, those who feel self-conscious about it can bow out gracefully without missing anything fun.
Also, if a friend does say something like, “OMG, my dog just knocked over my bookshelf, I am so sorry, I have to go!” let her go. Don’t say “Oh, just clean it up after the party” or make her feel bad. This may be her way of leaving before she has to watch you open up beautiful things that she really wanted to get for you but couldn’t afford.
Planning an online party definitely has its unique challenges, but with this virtual bridal shower planner and timeline, you should be covered!
Do you have any other tips for the perfect virtual bridal shower itinerary? How about favorite Zoom backgrounds or other ideas? Share below!
Andreea is a very passionate content creator and her purpose is to provide you with the most interesting articles, while constantly discovering new facts. She’s been freelance writing for the past five years and has created numerous articles and educational materials while managing her own blog.
