Kitchen & Recipe Theme

Have you ever been in the middle of creating the perfect culinary masterpiece, when you suddenly realize that you don't own the most important cook's tool that the recipe calls for? After you have to scrap the best recipe you could possibly ever make (yes, you guessed it, for lack of that flour sifter), you realize the value of those not-so-useless cook's tools. Prevent this trauma for your bride-to-be with a kitchen theme shower.

In fact, in addition to all of the kitchen utensils, why not give the bride-to-be some recipes to accompany them (most of the brides we know have a culinary repertoire of about 3 recipes… chicken, chicken, and spaghetti from a jar).

Kitchen Theme Bridal Shower Invitations

Another wonderful idea is to have a caricature custom made. Hand drawn artwork of the bride cooking something up in the kitchen will make a great invitation (and keepsake)! You can use it for other decorations throughout the party too!

Spice up your invitations by including mini wooden cutting boards (you can find these at your local "Dollar Store", or mini replicas can be made out of popsicle sticks) with the invite. Glue the invitations on to the boards, and then send the boards each in their own padded envelope (or hand-deliver them). You can also find mini whisks or other kitchen type accessories to illustrate the theme of the shower.

Kitchen Theme Bridal Shower Decorations and Party Supplies
Greet everyone with a life-sized cutout of the bride. You can use the artwork from your caricature or have the bride in her wedding dress. You can dress it up by placing a personalized apron or chef hat on the cutout.

Next to the cutout place a sign in board where guests can leave advice and good wishes to the couple. Again, if you had a caricature made you can have that made into a sign in board from Party411. A personalized sign-in board with a photo is another great option. Or set out a personalized guest frame with an engraved nameplate.

Decorate the room with bunches of pastel latex balloons. Add a wedding dress balloon to each bunch. Use kitchen themed balloon weights as a creative touch (measuring cup, cutting board, small sauce pan...) which the bride can keep after the shower.

Fill Tupperware and other food storage containers with flowers and place them around the room. Everyone will be so impressed with your kitchen theme decorations!

Kitchen Theme Bridal Shower Table Decorations and Menu
Let the bride-to-be and the rest of the guests sample some of the recipes that were given to the bride. Have a potluck! You can ask a few of the close relatives to bring the classic family dishes. That way you can be sure the menu works well together. You can set it up buffet style (the best way to go for a shower), and set out some cute bridal shower paper goods.

"Grate Shopping" - Pink Mini Grater Favor GiftIn the middle of each table, place a utensil holder filled with tools. Make each table full of different tools (have enough of the tools to give one to each guest at that table as a favor), or fill the holders with a bunch of different tools on every table and let the bride to be take them all home.

Set out a few cute mini graters on each of the tables, and a personalized water bottle label at each place setting. They are super cute decorations and guests can take them home as favors after the shower.

For another idea, you can find a bunch of different recipes in cookbooks by famous chefs (Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse, Graham Kerr, etc.), and lay out all of the ingredients as well as a card with the recipe on it in a basket. At the end of the shower, one lucky winner will take home the centerpiece.

If you are going to have assigned seating, make your own seating cards and table numbers by cutting out a picture of a kitchen utensil from a magazine or catalogue (pictures of most cook's tools can be found in the Williams-Sonoma catalogue), and mirror it to the tool(s) that represents each table. You can also find some great clip art that represents kitchen items. Try tying mini utensils to seating cards for another look.


Kitchen Theme Bridal Shower games and Activities
Here are a few fun bridal shower games to play at your kitchen theme shower:

"Spice up the Party" - Have a number of different spices covered up so that you cannot tell which spice you are holding. On the cover of each one there should be a number. Give each guest a piece of paper with identical numbers to the ones on the spices. As each spice is passed around (without its top), everyone has to guess what each spice is and put their guesses next to each number on the paper. Whoever guesses the most correctly wins a prize and the bride gets to keep all the spices!

"House Tool Trivia" - Have each guest bring a household object that is not easily identified, such as a caviar spoon, tea infuser spoon, citrus juicer, crab cracker, etc. (Many of these neat cooking utensils can be found at Williams Sonoma). Distribute paper and pencil and ask players to try and guess what each object does. The player with the most correct answers is the winner. Present a basket of the objects to the winner.

"Recipe Riot" - Have each guest bring a wonderful dessert/appetizer/main course to the party (make sure to split all guests into specific categories so everyone doesn't bring the same type of dish). Have each guest try a little bit of each dish, and then have them vote for their favorite dish in each category (besides their own). Give the guest of honor a beautifully decorated box (or album) of yummy recipes from her family and friends. (There is also a blank recipe book that can be found at larger bookstores. You can have everyone write their recipes, and maybe a memory or two in that book instead of the box).

See our Bridal Shower Games for more great ideas!

Kitchen Theme Bridal Shower Party Favors
There are so many different options for favors for this type of shower. I love these personalized bridal shower mint tins (there is even a kitchen theme one). Other tasty favor is a custom kitchen shower candy bar wrapper!

Or maybe a cute set of salt and pepper shakers? Here are a few of our favorites:

• Love Bird Salt & Pepper Shakers in Gift Package
• "Heart to Heart" Interlocking Salt & Pepper Shakers
• Miniature Classic Candy Jar Salt and Pepper

A small recipe box with cute blank cards is also a cute and relatively inexpensive take home favor. You can add a utensil from the centerpiece on each table to the take home favors for each guest.

Have fun at your kitchen and recipe theme bridal shower!