Written by Cori Burcham | Photos by Getty Images & Suzanne Winter

Tradition and the big wedding milestones go together like cake and frosting. It’s the reason the bride throws a handful of flowers backward into a crowd of her waiting friends during the reception. It dictates that the bride wear something old, new, borrowed, and blue to gain a little extra luck for a happy marriage. And it’s even the reason the bride’s closest female friends and family gather together to shower her with gifts and play games for one of the pre-wedding celebrations: the bridal shower. Since the contemporary bridal shower pays tribute to the bride by showcasing her individuality and personality, it’s essential for anyone planning this pre-wedding event to consider which traditions will speak to the future Mrs. personally, and either lose or update the ones that don’t.

Keepsake Creation Station: Love It

Upon entering the festivities, guests are typically greeted with a sight that’s present at every standard bridal shower: a gift table, trays of finger foods, and some kind of craft station where guests can use their creativity to fashion a handmade keepsake for the bride. Not only does this tradition give guests something fun to do at the party that’s not as cheesy or overdone as bridal shower games, but it also provides the bride with a beautiful keepsake to remember the day.

If the bride has a passion for arts and crafts, set out a canvas and some paint to create thumbprint art, a group art project in which the guests add their thumbprints — usually representing flower petals or leaves — to create a minimalistic painting of nature. An updated version of the keepsake box, more bridal showers are featuring wishing trees as their craft-of-choice, a station with decorative cards and ribbon to write down well-wishes or advice for the bride that’ll be hung on a small faux tree. The end result is a keepsake the bride can treasure that doubles as home decor and a tangible illustration of all the guests’ love and support.

Games About the Bride’s Relationship: Lose It

The present-day bridal shower is less concerned with preparing the bride for marriage and more in favor of celebrating the bride personally. Within that frame of mind, some of the well-intentioned, classic bridal shower games — the “Newlywed Game” and “He Said, She Said” — that involve asking the guests a series of trivia questions based on the couple’s relationship are a bit outdated to fit into the modern-day mold. Instead of making the bride’s impending nuptials the focal point, one popular alternative is to focus on another important relationship in the bride’s life: the connection she has with the women in attendance. A memory jar, in which the guests write down their favorite memories with the bride-to-be and place them in a mason jar, provides an outlet for guests to reminisce about the good times with the bride that can be read aloud to the group for some laughs or recollected in private.

The Personal Shower: Love It

Depending on the bride’s personal preference and the couple’s necessity for household items, the personal shower — a more intimate celebration of the bride-to-be that focuses on her interests and individuality — is one bridal shower custom that should be continued. The other wedding milestones, such as the engagement party and the big day itself, customarily celebrate the couple by gifting them home goods to begin building their future together. Apart from the bachelorette party, the bridal shower is the one wedding milestone that honors the bride individually. With this in mind, the personal shower is a chance for the friends and family who love her most to shower her with presents she’ll personally enjoy.

Depending on the type of personal gifts the bride requests, there’s also the opportunity to tie in a fun, unique party theme that’s different from the standard tea party or luncheon. A personal shower asking for beauty or self-care items could incorporate a relaxing, at-home spa day with facial masks, a DIY aromatherapy station, or even a yoga class. A lingerie shower could become an elegant pajama party with champagne and a rom-com movie marathon. With hobby or interest-related showers, a bookish bride could have a party with a literary aesthetic. Since the event is tailored to the bride’s personality, the opportunities are as multi-dimensional and extraordinary as the bride herself, which is where the focus should be on such a day.  

The Ribbon Bouquet: Redo It

After all the finger food’s been eaten and all the presents have been opened, the maid of honor at the end of the shower traditionally collects the ribbons and bows from the gifts and uses them to make a handmade ribbon bouquet for the bride to use at the rehearsal dinner. While the sentiment behind this tradition is beautiful, the bouquet is usually better in theory than in actual execution. To make less work for the maid of honor or to simply carry a handcrafted item that’s more appropriate for a coastal wedding, consider exchanging the mess of ribbons and bows for one of Salty Soul’s seashell bouquets.

Similar to the ribbon tradition, Salty Soul’s seashell bouquets have the same handmade touch, since it takes local artisan Suzanne Winters approximately 6 hours to make by hand with nothing but a handful of white seashells, some skewers, and her lifelong skills as a crafter. When Winters moved to the area three years ago, she was inspired to discover her new niche as an artisan and decided to design seashell bouquets to join in on the coastal trend while still creating something one-of-a-kind. Her bouquets seemed destined to be a fashion trend for local weddings given that her very first customer bought one as a gift for a friend’s daughter to use at her rehearsal dinner. Ranging between $100 to $250, Winters currently offers small, medium, and large bouquet options that can be customized to match the theme of a wedding. “It’s something that you can keep forever, and you definitely don’t want to throw it,” says Winters jokingly, referring to the tradition of the bouquet toss. To commission one of Salty Soul's seashell bouquets, contact Winters at (717) 877-5720.