Baby Showers have been around for a long time and they can be hosted by family or friends or if you’re like us and actually like to host, then you and Baby-Daddy can plan it yourselves. For modern parents who want a stress-free planning experience, we’ve got #allthetips Hi, we’re David and Meivys, a husband and wife photography team based in South Florida. We photograph weddings, portraits, and brands. We share all about life, marriage, and business over at @suarezpartyoftwo. Welcome and we can’t wait to connect with you!
- Plan and do your baby shower earlier on! This is something I really wanted to do early on so that I can enjoy, host and wear heels, rather than be tired and waddling all over the place lol… We planned our baby shower to fall at 23 weeks. I also looked cute and not puffy because I can only imagine how my ankles and belly are going to feel now that I am 27 weeks and its beginning.
- Don’t overdo the theme. Get neutral decor and dress it up with a theme rather than have the items everywhere you turn, this will also help you save money and be able to customize details. For example, we had hot air balloons on the cake and cake pops as well as on the signs, but overall there was an emphasis on a color palette versus a theme.
- Create your registry before you send out invitations. The minute you send out invitations, everyone will be asking about the registry and if its not ready to go, you’ll be missing out on gifts you’ve wanted, but haven’t had a chance to add to the registry. We used babylist.com as our registry because it allows us to add things to the list from all over online, including amazon, buy buy baby, target, etsy, and local shops.
- Have a Baby Shower Website. For our baby shower, we had people from out of town and of all ages so having a place that is readily available on their phones was a must have for us. We included details for the shower, accommodation information, our registry, and wish lists and raffle details. It was also a way to simplify our invitation.
- Write down the gifts, all of them! Since we are in this new age of technology and free shipping lol… lots of people sent over gifts to our home and so writing the list of gifts after the baby shower was over would not suffice, we had to start writing down gifts the moment invitations went out so that we wouldn’t miss anyone and could thank them accordingly, not to mention know who each gift was from.
- Book some type of entertainment. At events the host is always the center of attention and its hard to take a breath. This is why we love to book entertainment when we host larger events because it takes the pressure and the spotlight off of us as hosts for just a bit. It allows us to relax for a few minutes and also enjoy the show. Whether you book a serenade like we did or have a live food station or show, its always a guest favorite and allows the hosts to breathe.
- Invest in decor that will go in baby’s room later. This is the best advice momma-to-be because decor can get expensive! But if you invest in items that will later go in baby’s room, you’re scoring a two for one! You’ll be able to use the decor again and it will have served you well!
- Be pick with your vendors! We own a photography business and we are all about the client experience so we imagined that every other business out there put an emphasis on client satisfaction just like we do with our clients, but we did not have that luck. It was very stressful to coordinate so many vendors and we were sometimes shocked at the level of customer service. Not all our vendors were perfect, but they delivered. However, word to the wise!!! Either hire an event planner or be veryyyy selective about the vendors that you decide to work with or hire because it is not easy nor does it always meet your expectations, especially if you are a business owner that runs their business with client experience at the top tier.
- Order invitations and thank you cards at the same time! Ok this might sound silly, but you don’t want to be waiting around for those thank you cards to arrive after the shower. You still have to write them, address them, and ship them. If you order them with your physical invitations or at the time you’re sending out invitations, you’ll already have them and it will be easier to get to it the week or few days after the shower, otherwise it’ll happen like it did to us and the thank you cards will be sent a month later! lol
Here is our Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower Blog
Now that you have some of our best tips for planning a stress-free baby shower, here’s a checklist that will help you get there with ease because planning anything can feel like a huge undertaking, especially while preggo!
3-4 months before the baby shower:
Raid Pinterest and decide on a theme and color palette.
Determine your budget. This guides your whole event!
Create a vision board or inspiration page. We did ours on Canva.com
Create your registry. Ours was on Babylist.com
Create your baby website – totally optional, but super helpful! You can create in on Canva.com or if you have your own website, make it a hidden tab only accessible via a custom link, that’s what we did – tinyurl.com/SuarezShower
Write the guest list – this one is hard, and can be as small or large as your budget can manage, the more guests the more $$ you spend.
Find a venue and do a vendor search – be picky with your vendors!
2-3 months before the baby shower:
Solidify vendors and start making deposits
Share your vision
Draft up with an itinerary
Decide on games
Write a list of supplies and prizes you’ll need for your games
Send out invites and RSVP information
Start the gift list
1 month before the baby shower
Order anything that needs to be shipped
Order flowers
Plan seating if you’re assigning seats
Print or write place cards
Print any game instructions and signage
1- 2 weeks before the baby shower
Confirm with all vendors and make any payments needed
Confirm RSVPs and final guest count
Create a playlist
Write out game instruction scripts and assign prizes to each game
Day before or day of the baby shower
Purchase perishables and ice
Pick up any food or dessert orders not being delivered
Set up decorations – if you can start the one to two nights before, even better!
Chill beverages and place all decor in its place
Get dressed, hair and makeup
Tip and pay vendors
Have fun!
After the baby shower
Write and send Thank You cards
Sort gifts
Return double gifts
The great news is we created a free checklist for you – Download the checklist here!
xoxo, David and Meivys
