"She's FALLn in Love" Bridal Shower

Ideas for a dreamy “She’s FALLn’ in Love” bridal shower. Decor, bridal shower food, themed activities, and free printables!

Fall is the perfect time for a picnic in plaid, running through the leaves, and all things pumpkin. But do you know what else it is perfect for? Celebrating love!

With the seasons changing and gorgeous colors all around, fall is the MOST AMAZING time to enjoy a bridal shower. I know that having a summer wedding is super popular, but fall and winter weddings can be just as beautiful. So for those who want to embrace the red, orange, and yellow as their backdrop, here is everything you need to plan a fall bridal shower!

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Tips for Planning a Bridal Shower

Set a Theme – One of the best pieces of advice I can give for event planning is to select a theme! The theme doesn’t have to be anything crazy. It could be a color palette or a phrase, but just having a theme makes the event feel more thought out and cohesive.

Decide on a Budget – When planning a bridal shower, you want to establish a budget and stick to it! Having a budget will help you allocate resources accordingly. It can also be useful in helping you think of all the party elements in a “big picture way”, because it forces you to consider how everything will fit together.

Divide and Conquer – Sometimes it can feel like a lot to manage all the aspects of throwing a bridal shower. There’s a decent amount of planning, preparation, and coordination. If possible, delegate responsibilities to others who are willing to help. Possible jobs could be coming up with themed foods, sending out invites, ordering items, helping set up on the day of, and clean up after the shower.

Simplify Where Possible – I feel like we live in a time where everyone feels like they have to spend lots of money and throw extravagent parties to keep up with appearances. However, sometimes less is more. A few food items and decor pieces can be enough to make a party feel themed and intentional. Try to borrow from others, purchase items on a discount, or buy items you will reuse.

Fall Themed Invite

Arguably one of the first priorities for planning a bridal shower is to create an invite to send to all the lovely friends who will be attending. For a fall themed bridal shower, there is a wide range of colors (reds, oranges, tans, yellows, browns, etc.) that can be used along with cute symbols such as pumpkins, candles, leaves, plaid, old trucks, and pinecones.

Below is an example of the invite and color scheme we used for this “She’s Falln’ In Love” bridal shower. It was a fall wedding invitation template that I customized on Canva to fit the party. If you’re looking to design your own invite, I highly recommend using Canva. It is a pretty straightforward design tool with lots of options for pre-made templates and customization.

No matter what, just remember to add key information such as

The bridal shower theme
Bride-to-be/ person being celebrated
Event time and day
Shower location
RSVP information
Dress code
Any Special Instructions

If you do that, it’ll turn out great! I mean just look at that bridal shower invite. Didn’t it turn out SO cute?!

And then as far as sending it out goes, I would make sure that your invitations are RECEIVED within two weeks of the party at the very latest. Generally a month or 2 before is better. This means you may need to mail them out even earlier and send a reminder text or email a week or two before the party. It may seem far in advance, but the more time people have to put the event on the calendar, the more likely you are to have high attendance!

“She’s FALLen in Love” Decor

The key to not spending a million dollars on decor is to have 1 or 2 focal spots! You can see how we did that here with the fireplace being a focal spot and the table being a focal spot. Not to mention the fact that my aunt owns just about every kind of decor out there and gladly let us borrow all of her fall tablecloths, pumpkin ceramics, and vases.

However, since you likely don’t have that, here are some relatively inexpensive ways to add color and theme to a party include

doing a balloon display
adding a colored tablecloth
hanging a backdrop or banner
utilizing leaves, pinecones, or acorns from nature
and using plates/napkins that fit the party colors.

She's Falln' In Love Bridal Shower Decor

Fall-themed Bridal Shower Food

Having been to many a party, I can say that food makes the celebration 100x better. Even if you don’t have a full meal, it still is worthwhile to provide some refreshments and snacks.

In our case, we did an afternoon party. Because of this, we opted for a light spread of both sweet and savory elements. This way party goers could enjoy social eating, but not feel pressured to eat a full plate.

Here’s what we included at our party:

Caramel apple bar
Pretzel rods with melted chocolate and toppings
Dehydrated apple slices
Pumpkin streusel muffins
Pumpkin roll slices
Sliced cheese and crackers
Apple Cider and water

I think these foods turned out perfect! Everyone loved decorating their own apple slices and pretzels. We ended up having so much, that we had guests decorate some treat to take home. SO fun!

She's Falln' In Love Bridal Shower Food - Caramel Apple Bar

Other Fall Party Food Ideas:

Now if those party foods didn’t excite you, don’t worry. There are plenty of other foods that fit well with the fall theme and could easily be served at a party. When selecting party food, I suggest trying to provide items that are easy to serve (Finger foods work great!) and having at least one sweet and one savory food. After that you can think about things to make in bulk, items that are cost effective, have popular flavors, etc.

Here are some other foods you could consider:

Cinnamon Rolls
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Warm Soup and Bread
Hot Cocoa and Whipped Cream
Fall Charcuterie Board
Baked Pie
Glazed Donuts
Sweet potato nachos

The possibilities are endless! As you plan your menu, just try to think of foods that capture fall flavors and colors or that are cozy and warm!

Activities Your Guests Will Fall in Love With

Bridal showers are a great way for friends and family of the bride-to-be to come together. However, I can tell you from experience, that they need some sort of game or activity to keep the energy up. Activities don’t have to be elaborate or expensive. They just need to relate to the theme, weddings, or the couple!

Here are some of my favorites:

Bridal Shower Bingo	This game is ideal for playing as gifts are opened. Simply have the shower attendees fill in the bingo cards with wedding registry items they think the bride will get. Then, guests check off the items if the bride opens that! First to get a full row wins.
He Said She Said	This game is a great way to help guests learn a little more about the happy couple. Essentially, the printable has a list of questions and the players have to decide whether they think each question or phrase best describes the bride or groom.
Guess the Dress	For this game, guests draw what they think the bride’s wedding dress looks like. Then, each person briefly presents their drawing and shares the elements of it and why they felt it would fit the bride’s style. Whoever the gets closest to the actual dress design wins.
Would She Rather	In this game, players try to see who knows the future bride’s personality best. Players fill out a series of questions, selecting which option they feel the bride would most likely choose. The person who gets the greatest number correct wins!

GREAT NEWS!! I actually took the versions of this game that I’ve made in the past and redesigned them to fit the fall theme. So, click here if you want to access any of the FALL printables of these games!!!

Other Bridal Shower Games and Inspo

Wedding Planning Help for The Bride-to-Be

As someone who planned their WHOLE wedding themselves (last summer!) I know all too well the work that goes into planning the big day. Here are some resources I have put together to help my fellow brides as they navigate this exciting (and stressful) journey!

Don’t Leave Just Yet

Here at Events to Celebrate, my whole goal is to help real people plan for their kids’ birthday parties, life events, and holidays! Life is crazy. I GET IT. You don’t have endless time OR money to spend on parties, but you still want to help your guests have a great time. I’m here to help give you tips, tricks, and ideas for celebrating life on a budget.

As a mom, you want to do it all. You want to make your family happy and create special memories. My brand is all about creating special moments with those you love. The kind of moments that you will look back on years later and wish you could relive! So, if that’s something you’re interested in, stick around! I have an email list you can sign up for, so you don’t miss my future party ideas!

“She’s FALLn’ in Love” Bridal Shower