How The Bridesmaids Can Help At The Bridal Shower

When you're a bridesmaid in a wedding, your job is to help the bride. Anything she needs, you're on it. One of my fondest memories at my wedding was when my bridesmaid Gionna asked me if I liked my hair. She saw my face, knew I hated it, and also knew that I wasn't the kind of person who would ask for it to be redone. So instead, she went into the room where the stylist was, then came back momentarily to where I was and told me the stylist would fix it.

That's your role. Whatever the bride needs you to do, you do. The bride is looking out for everyone, the guests are looking out for themselves, and you're looking out for the bride.

When you're planning the bridal shower, though, you change from supporting the bride to supporting the maid-of-honor and the bride's mom. If they ask you to help make invitations or to pick up napkins, that's what you do.

But what about when you get to the bridal shower? That's when it's a little awkward because a lot of bridesmaids just don't know how they help.

I got you. Here's a quick list of how the bridesmaids can help at the bridal shower. Knowing this, you'll have an idea of how to make yourself helpful -- without constantly asking the maid-of-honor if there's anything you can do.

How The Bridesmaids Can Help At The Bridal Shower

1. Set up.
Ask the bride's mom or maid-of-honor what time you are able to get into the venue. The staff will usually allow you to arrive early in order to set up for the party.

Whatever that time is, get there.

When you're there, ask how you can help. Maybe you'll be putting out games at each seat. Or maybe you'll be setting up the centerpieces. Or the gift table.

Whatever you're needed to do, do it. It will be such a big help. So many people will see the time on the invitation and arrive then, leaving so much work for the bride's mom and maid-of-honor. They will really appreciate your help.

2. Greet the guests.
If you're a really good friend or relative of the bride, you might know everyone who is coming to the shower. You'll also know who they know.

So, what's really helpful is if you see someone walk in, greet them. Say hello, point out the closest drink, and point out where their friends are. "Oh hi Edna. Your sister Daisy is already here and sitting in the back left corner," goes a long way to make everyone comfortable.

And, if you see a carpool walk in together, you can point out a completely empty table so they can all sit together.

This will make every guest feel welcome, and it will give you something to do while the bridal shower is getting started.

If you aren't completely familiar with everyone, you can ask another bridesmaid to help you with this. Together, you should be able to figure out all the guests.


3. Explain the games.
If you're having bridal shower games, they might be sitting out on everyone's seat. (You might be the reason they are there if you helped out via Number 1 on this list.) People might be unfamiliar with the bridal bingo sheet in front of them, so that's where you swoop in.

You can sit next to Daisy (since she got there before her sister Edna) and tell her how to fill out her bingo sheet. You can then ask her to explain the game to the other women at her table when they arrive.

This is actually a really great way to engage anyone who is sitting alone. Better for them to talk to a live human being than sit on their phone scrolling Facebook.

4. Help out with the presents.
A huge part of a bridal shower is when the bride opens her gifts. Everyone sits and watches, which is why bridal bingo is so popular. It gives guests a reason to watch and pay attention.

When the bride-to-be is opening her gifts she needs help. A lot of help. If not, this task will take forever. And no amount of bridal bingo prizes will keep anyone interested.

So the bride-to-be needs five people to help her when she is opening her gifts. Yes, five. Count them. One: Someone to pick a gift off the table. Two: Someone to open the card from that gift. Three: Someone to start unwrapping the gift, then to hand it with the open card to the bride. Four: Someone to take the gift when it is opened. This needs to be the loudest helper because she needs to yell out what the gift is so everyone playing bridal bingo can mark their cards. Five: Someone to track a list of every gift. She can either use a journal or write on the back of the cards.

For @ChiStyleWed, my bow hat from my shower (& my bridesmaid who assembled it helping me) #BridalBabble pic.twitter.com/DrCmc9aRGl

— Lisa (@abrideabudget) January 15, 2014

5. Make the hat.
When the bride is opening her gifts, someone needs to collect all the bows, ribbons, and paraphernalia, and make her a hat. It's not the best part of the shower for the bride, but it's so funny.

My bridal shower was the weekend before Christmas, and people put Christmas ornaments on my bridal shower gifts ... just so they would hang off my hat. It was so funny.

I actually hang those ornaments on our tree now, and it's such a fun reminder of my bridal shower. So if you know how, be the person who volunteers to make the hat.

6. Take photos.
Honestly, I have very few photos from my bridal shower. I didn't take a single one myself. Luckily, one of my friends took a bunch of them and put them on a CD for me.

If you have nothing else to do, take photos. Take photos of everything: the presents, the cake, the guests, table shots, the bar set up, everything. You have no idea what the bride-to-be may have missed, and you want to have the photos to show her.

7. Clean up.
You're a guest at the party, so you are able to sit and eat and have a good time. But when all the other guests are leaving, stay behind.

If it's at a restaurant, the waitstaff will probably be bussing the tables and taking care of dirty glasses. If it's in a party room, though, it's most helpful to them if you pick up after the party, like the garbage.

The bride-to-be will also need to bring all her gifts into the car, and that can be a daunting task. So offer to help with that or with cleaning up.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What other ways can you think of for how the bridesmaids can help at the bridal shower?

Should You Take Engagement Photos?

When we were living in New York, Pete and I went to Wave Hill , a gorgeous park close to his house. We walked around the gardens, through the woods, looked at the bridge and the river, and at the end, we both said this is where we'd take our engagement photos.

That was just wishful thinking at that point because we weren't engaged then. 

We did get engaged (obviously), but we ended up not taking our engagement photos in Wave Bill because we moved to North Carolina before he proposed. We did take them at a beach close to our home in North Carolina.

But they question remains: Should you take engagement photos?

My friend Mallory, who got married in July 2012, got hers done too, and I borrowed some of hers for this post.

Engagement photos are very nice and are appropriate for Save the Date cards ... but realistically, you use one photo for the Save the Date and that's it. So to spend about a hundred bucks on one photo, that's silly to me, and makes you wonder: Are engagement photos worth it?

To save, we actually ended up taking them with a new photographer who was looking for photos for her portfolio. She didn't charge us, but we did tip her because I didn't feel right getting them completely for free.

We ended up using just one photo of the set for our save the dates and a canvas print to hang in our bedroom. Other than that, I'm not sure what engagement photos are for, to be honest. I made wedding confetti out of a few of them, just to get more use out of our photos. You could put together our DIY Photo Banner with them. But other than that, you're just pushing it.

We took a selfie the day of our engagement and that's what I used for our engagement party invites. Good enough for me.

But taking engagement photos is a good excuse to test out your photographer. It also helps you get comfortable with them, which could do wonders for you being comfortable around them during your wedding.

And there are a lot of fun engagement photo ideas out there now: from a beach to a park to just showing your personalities. So it could actually just be a fun day to spend together.

And, if you did take your photos already, you're in luck. Right now, you can get a free 8x10 at CVS. You can upload a photo, add it to your cart, and enter the code DADPRINT at checkout. Choose in store pickup and your photo will be completely free.

BRIDAL BABBLE: Did you get engagement photos professionally taken?

Need help with your engagement photos?

Check out our Engagement Picture Tips post.

Wedding Diet Friendly Blackberry Yogurt Popsicles (Only 2 ingredients!)

This time four years ago, I was really trying to figure out just how to indulge my sweet tooth and not put on any more weight. It was two weeks out from our wedding and I had just put my dress on for the first time in a year. It was in the process of getting altered -- which meant hemming the bottom. Nothing was coming in from the sides and nothing was getting let out. Which means I had to be very particular about what I was eating. And which also means I wish I had made these wedding diet friendly Blackberry Popsicles then.

Except I couldn't because I didn't create a recipe for them.

I mean, if you can call it a recipe. It's seriously just two things put into a popsicle mold.

And it tastes like magic.

If magic tastes like a delicious ice pop that is magically healthy for you.

Wedding-Diet Friendly Blackberry Yogurt Popsicles

This recipe is to make four popsicles. You may have to adjust the recipe based on the size of your popsicle molds and how many you are making.

I used this popsicle mold, so my recipe is based off that.

Also, you can use fresh fruit for this, but I used frozen because fresh berries are so expensive this time of year.

What You'll Need:

• 2 cups vanilla Greek yogurt
• 1 cup frozen blackberries

What You'll Do:

Chop up the blackberries very fine. Honestly,  the smaller you can chop these, the better.

Put the yogurt and blackberries into a bowl and stir them until combined.

Visually, you want the blackberries to bleed enough to tint the Greek yogurt. It's a lot prettier to eat a pink popsicle than a white one.

Fill the popsicle mold with the mixture.

Put the tops on and freeze the blackberry yogurt popsicles overnight.

You can't just pull these out of the freezer and eat them. Instead, you actually have to put the entire mold in lukewarm water for about 20 seconds until the popsicle slides out of the mold.

You can refreeze the rest.

These easy yogurt popsicles can be changed up easily by changing the fruit and/or yogurt flavor. That way, you can enjoy these all through wedding planning without getting tired of them.

I always make these as vanilla yogurt popsicles, with vanilla Greek yogurt. You can use other flavors if you want. You can also use regular yogurt, not Greek, but Greek yogurt has a thicker consistency, so your popsicles might hold together a little bit better with Greek yogurt.

Small note: If you're following Weight Watchers as part of your wedding diet, use non-fat Greek yogurt instead of vanilla, and this is 0 Weight Watchers Freestyle Points per blackberry yogurt popsicle!

BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you make these Blackberry Yogurt Popsicles?