Coed Baby Shower Ideas
Pick a ThemeHow to plan your Baby Shower starts by "picking a theme." Nowadays, mothers have technology available through ultrasound to know beforehand what their baby is going to be. My daughter found out she is having a girl, so the information below is based mostly from a "baby girl" shower perspective.
Compile a List
She came over one evening
and we sat on the bed and talked about what we should do, since the only experience
we have is from past showers. Here's the list we compiled. So, what comes first,
the date or the place?
We realized that if we picked a date first, then maybe the place wouldn't be available to rent on that day. So we had to find a place first and see what they had available for what dates.
1. Rent a
Place and Set the Date
We
thought about renting the meeting room at our local library, but she felt that
too many of her friends would not be able to travel that far. So we opted for
the community center at the apartment complex close by to where she was living.
It would have been fine though, if it was here at home, but still, it was too
far away for her liking.
2. Sign up for a Registry
Nowadays, they
have baby registries that you can sign up for, and your guests can go there, print
a list, and then choose the item they want to get the baby. The registry is suppose
to help with the "duplicate gift" problem. I noticed that Amazon.com
has one and you can even set up one with Walmart.com online. I'm sure there are
many of them. If you have a Baby's
R Us near you, that would work too. However, we found that very few guests
used the gift registry.
We thought about printing some fliers from our computer, but we put that idea on hold, since we would have to create them. Then we went to a thrift store one day and found three packets of baby shower invitations for a quarter each.
We were delighted with that option, but when we got home and started to fill them out, they were so old that the envelopes had presealed. I told her, let's just go to Walmart and get some, thinking they would be cheap. In Walmart we went to the gift wrapping aisle, and all the invitations were like $4.59 for 8, and $7.97. Wow, we thought, guess we're going to have to make some after all.
We started browsing the decorative party plates aisle, and she looked up and found three packets of Winnie the Pooh invitations! For $1.79 each! What luck! We had the invitations and they went along with the theme.
We even got some Winnie the Pooh stickers to attach the Baby Registry slips from Walmart inside, and to seal the envelopes instead of licking them. We were pleased with the way they all turned out.
3. Send
the Invitations
We went back home and started filling them out. She had
already compiled a list of guests earlier in the day. It took several hours for
us to fill out just 30 invitations. She suggested not sending them, but passing
them out instead.
4. Things to think about
We realized we were
going to have to work out how the party was going to go, and in what order things
should happen, such as:
1. Organize activities
2. Organize the day
3. Find good, not stupid, games for men and women
4. Find friends to make
food
5. Find friends to make favors