Bridal shower invitations, from guest list to sent link

A bridal shower is the one party where the guest list is partly decided for you. It comes out of the wedding list, which means the host spends more time cross-checking names than choosing napkins. Get that part right and nothing else can go badly wrong.

Bringalong gives you an invite page in about a minute, no account needed and nothing for guests to install. You share one link by text or email and keep a private manage link with the replies, the counts and a CSV export for the caterer. Guests tap Going, Maybe or Can't go, add a dietary note, and can put the date straight into their own calendar.

How long before the wedding to hold it

Four to twelve weeks before the wedding is the range, and six to eight is the comfortable middle. Earlier than three months and the wedding feels abstract; closer than two weeks and you are competing with final fittings, seating charts and a bride who has stopped answering her phone. Avoid the seven days before the wedding entirely.

Invites go out four to six weeks ahead of the shower, with a reply date two weeks before. If the wedding is a destination one, or if guests are flying for both, run the shower earlier and keep it shorter: people who are already spending money on flights will thank you for a two-hour lunch rather than a full Saturday.

Check the date against the bachelorette weekend before you book anything. Asking the same group for two Saturdays in a fortnight produces polite declines on one of them.

1. 8 weeks before the wedding: shower date agreed with the bride and her mother.
2. 6 weeks before the shower: venue booked, link sent.
3. 2 weeks before the shower: replies in, final numbers and menu set.
4. 1 week before: games, prizes and a box for recipe cards ready.
5. Day of: one host on arrivals, one on food, one on photos.

Who to invite, measured against the wedding list

The firm rule: nobody is invited to the shower who is not invited to the wedding. Breaking it leaves a guest buying two gifts for an event they were later cut from, which is the kind of thing people still mention at the ten-year mark. The single accepted exception is a workplace shower, where colleagues celebrate at the office and the wedding list is separate.

Build the list from the wedding list with the bride in the room, and expect 15 to 30 names: bridal party, both mothers, grandmothers, aunts, cousins she sees, close friends. Out-of-town wedding guests get invited as a courtesy with a line that releases them from the guilt of saying no, something like "a long way for an afternoon, so no hard feelings if it is not your weekend."

If the couple has one shared friend group, a co-ed shower, sometimes called a Jack and Jill, makes more sense than two separate parties. Say on the invite that partners are included, because guests default to assuming otherwise.

Who hosts, and how the cost actually splits

The maid of honor usually hosts, often with the bridal party, sometimes with the bride's mother or an aunt. More hosts means a cheaper afternoon each and more opinions in the group chat, so name one person as the decider before you start on themes.

Split by job, not by receipt. One host takes venue and food, one takes cake and decorations, one takes games, prizes and the thank-you list, then even it out at the end with a transfer. At home you can run a decent shower at $15 to $25 a head. At a restaurant with a set menu, budget $45 to $70 a head before the cake, and book a private room only if the numbers justify the minimum spend.

If a host cannot cover an equal share, sort it privately and early. Give that person the jobs that cost time instead of money: the playlist, the photos, collecting the recipe cards, running the game. A shower where one bridesmaid is quietly in debt is worse than a shower with fewer flowers.

• At home, 20 guests: $300 to $500 total for food, drinks and cake.
• Restaurant set menu: $45 to $70 a head, plus a cake fee of $20 to $40.
• Decorations that look like something: $60 to $100, mostly flowers.
• Game prizes: three at $10 each is plenty.
• Leave 10 percent spare for the thing you forgot, usually ice or parking.

Registry, recipe cards and how many asks is too many

Put the registry at the bottom of the invite as a fact: "Sam and Kira are registered at Crate and Barrel and John Lewis, links on the reply page." Guests are going to look for it, and the bride should not have to answer that question fourteen times. Shower gifts usually run smaller than wedding gifts, so ask the couple to keep a run of items under $40.

One extra ask is charming. Two is homework. The recipe card is the classic, and it works if you give instructions: "bring one handwritten card with a meal you cook on a weeknight, and the name of whoever taught you." Have a box or a ring binder on the table so the cards do not go home in a handbag. Date-night suggestions on folded paper for a jar, or one line of marriage advice, work the same way.

For a lingerie shower, sizes have to come from the bride through the host, and only to guests who want to take part. Put it as an option rather than an instruction, and give anyone a clean way out: "optional, and a kitchen thing is equally welcome."

A three-hour shower that does not sag

Showers run long in the gift-opening section and nowhere else. Twenty guests bring somewhere near twenty parcels, and at two minutes each that is forty minutes of watching. Either open them all with someone narrating and someone else writing down the giver, or open six and take the rest home. Decide which before the day, and tell the bride, because she will be the one performing surprise.

A shape that holds for a two-thirty start: guests arrive and eat until three fifteen, one game at three fifteen, gifts from three thirty, cake at four fifteen, done by five thirty with half an hour of slack. Keep the ribbon bouquet if the bride enjoys that sort of thing and skip it if she does not.

Plan the exit. Twenty gifts have to get to a car, so ask two guests to stay back with empty boxes, and make sure the person driving is not the one being toasted.

Sending the invite to a mixed-age guest list

A shower list runs from the bride's college roommate to her great-aunt, so send the link more than one way. Paste it into the group chat for the bridal party, email it to the older half of the list, and print the QR code onto a card for anyone who would rather have paper on the fridge. Bringalong does not email or text guests for you, so the invite arrives from a name each guest recognizes.

On your manage link you can see who has replied Going, Maybe or Can't go, read the notes they leave, and export the list when the restaurant asks for a number. If the venue changes, edit the event and the link people already have shows the new address.