Tips To Organize A Sustainable Baby Shower

When I looked up online to find a few ideas for organising a baby shower, or maybe find some interesting activities to do at a baby shower, I couldn’t find any meaningful links or pages which could help me. It was locked down and hence I couldn’t even call an event planner or a decorator home, to do it for me. I went by my own creativity and ideas and organised a baby shower which came out lovely and memorable for all my friends, that too on a budget.

To help my comrades, today I list few good ideas and activities you could do to organise the most beautiful event for an expecting mama, and her crew so that you could save those bucks instead of giving it to an event planner and also have a sustainable party wherein whatever you spend on can be utilised later, instead of going in the bin or being picked up by the event planner himself. To begin with-

Guest list & Venue: I would want you to have a guest list in hand, number of people attending and the venue. Be mindful of the number of guests because if you plan to do it for a bigger gathering, then the venue has to be elsewhere and not your own home. To do a big event like the baby shower needs an ample amount of space. If you’re planning it for your friend, please have an estimate of the number of people she would be looking to have at her party so that it can help you decide on a venue.Outdoor spaces like gardens, terraces, parks, beaches etc can be kept as a Venue if the people attending are more than 7.

Theme: Having a memorable party, calls for a theme. The theme can be for the decoration, costumes, food etc or you can relate everything and link it to a beautiful theme. Usually when you do a theme, the pictures also come out beautiful and it gives an uncontrollable excitement to the guests who are attending it, when they plan on their dresses, prior to the big day, as per the theme. To give an example here, You can keep the theme as Black & White and the guests can all plan their dresses in either black or white and the mama can be in a mix of both the colours. The decoration can be with black, white, transparent and silver balloons or you can add a pinch of Golden confetti to the party. You can make use of silver foil balloons and put it in front of a black background.

Food obviously can't be in exact colours, however, keeping black coloured soft drinks, having items which match to your theme can be a good memory. The Cake, which is the most important part of your food can also be designed in the above mentioned colours or mix of all, you can, however, have a different coloured cake too.

Cake: The excitement of cutting a cake is an indispensable part of our lives, even when we turn

1. Cake is the most beautiful creation on earth to celebrate any occasion. Having a cake which is beautifully designed for a baby shower purposefully, will add a lot of charm to the event. Various designs are available online for baby shower cakes, you can also add the gender of the baby to the cake if you know it or if you wish to reveal it through the cake. Keeping in mind, the number of guests, Cake should be customised. If the gathering is bigger, you can have a two story or three storey cake or if you wish to have two separate cakes, one eggless (for vegetarians) and one with the component of egg.

Decoration & Design: The venue once decided, has to be converted into a beautiful baby shower place. If you have chosen your own house, terrace or garden to do the party, then the first thing to prepare for are the things you will buy to cover the entire space. Starting with a Curtain, backdrop, banner, balloons, carpet, white boards, crockery, table mat, cake holder, drinks dispenser, lights, etc. The things you will buy will be used later, and I'll tell you how!

If you have kept a theme, the purchases have to be made as per the theme itself and the backdrop too will be designed as per the theme. The main wall where all the pictures will be taken and the mama will stand and cut the cake, it has to be designed and decorated beautifully. You can add pictures and cut outs of ultrasounds or print them online, you can add pictures of the pregnant mama with the crew as well (if you have them beforehand) All the cutouts and graphics will be showing the connection to pregnancy and baby, For example; You can decorate the wall with Baby foil balloons or stickers saying some common lines from pregnancy like "Eating for two" , "uncontrollable pregnancy hormones" , "No alcohol, No Wine", "I cant keep calm, the baby is coming" etc.

The design of the entire venue shall be quirky and fun, a big white board can be kept at the entrance asking for guests to write some name suggestions for the baby. A side table shall be there for the guests to leave the gifts and pick up return gifts, if you wish to. All the soft toys in the house can be utilised in the decor with addition of flowers and balloons. You can also hang some balloons or create an arc of balloons yourself to separate the celebratory area from the eating area.

Games & Activities: The most awaited and fun part of the party is to have games and interesting activities for engaging the crowd. Some baby shower games are:

Pictionary, the one where one person draws a particular situation given to her by the other team and the team that person belongs to has to guess. The situations can be nasty and hilarious ones which are difficult to draw and guess, example; Spooning, pregnancy cravings, labour pain etc. The second game is Diapering, the one where one person has to volunteer to become a child and the other has to make that person wear a diaper, within a specific time limit. The diaper has to be made from toilet paper and that is what will make it funny and difficult. The third game is; Paint my toe, the one where you have to paint your toe nails with nailpaints, having a bump as big as a real bump, a big inflated balloon will be tuck inside the shirt of the person playing and the winner will be the one painting all the toenails in the shortest time with the balloon intact and inflated.

The fourth game is "Guess who's who", you can show the childhood picture of one of the guests in front of all others and make them guess who that person is, for this however, you will need the childhood pictures of all of them in advance to make sure everyone participates. If men are invited to the party, you can play “couple games'' too, starting with guessing the likes and dislikes of your partner and getting them right, the couple with the highest number of correct answers wins! Another game can be to have things available with you, the one who has the particular item available with him/her, wins. For example: You can call out the person who has the oldest driving license or you can call out the woman who has more than 7 rings in her hands etc.

Food: Baby shower food, has to be the food which you crave for, as it is to be related to pregnancy, ultimately that takes you to thinking of keeping the street food as one option in your Menu. Apart from keeping street food, you can also keep Chaats, Golgappas, Dhokla etc in the menu because that's what pregnant mama also crave for. It is needless to say, keeping a full fledged course , meals are too much of a job and need a bigger space, but at the same time there will be too much on the pocket too. Having all the colourful food items in the menu, gives guests a flavour of all and gives you the satisfaction of nothing going wasted later. You could also add sweet items like Waffles etc and fresh fruits along with one or two hot and cold beverages like Coffee, Mojitos and soft drinks.

Gifts: By Gifts, I mean the ones you would like to give away to the one's coming to bless You or the Mama! It could be in the form of Accesories, Bakery items like Muffins etc, Cosmetic products or if you mean to spend more to leave a memorable gift with your guests, you can get customised sweet boxes which will have the details of Mama and Baby printed and when the baby is expected, Return gifts along with the gifts needed for Games/Activities are very important to decide beforehand, because they need serious brainstorming and bulk purchase. Every winner will be getting a gift or a goodie hence gifts form a major part of your planning for Baby Shower.

How to make it sustainable?

We are in the era where slow and sustainable is required of us so that unnecessary resources are not wasted. At gatherings and parties, a lot of wastage is accumulated, which makes no sense. Making sure that you organise everything yourself will ensure that there is minimal wastage in the form of food, decorative items, flowers etc. Use things which are already available at your home and link it to the theme of Baby shower. New purchases should be such that they can be used later and don't have to be thrown away after single use. Some quick points to focus on:

• Avoid using plastic cups/ plastic plates and do not buy them because it loads the bin and produces a lot of waste.
• The decor can be done with foil balloons, which can be deflated and stored for future decorations, hence avoid plastic balloons and bursting them producing litter all around.
• The purchases like white board for recording Name suggestions etc can be utilised later when you go for pregnancy shoot wherein you can write whatever you feel to display in photographs and can use that white board as a prop, also it can be kept to be used by your baby later when he/she starts to play and write.
• The fancy stuff, like Banners, Candles, Mats etc can be stored and used for future

celebrations of your child when he/she turns 1, 2, 3 months respectively because with the arrival of a child everyday is a celebration and decoration forms a major part of your motherhood journey.

• Always be mindful and inform your crew about gifting you stuff which you will utilise in your motherhood journey, for example you can have a baby registry; mention all that you are planning to buy for the baby and your friends can tick off the list and gift you items which will be utilised and not wasted. This saves money for you and for them too.
• Having food which can be eaten by Vegetarians and Non vegetarians both as well as the

a pregnant mama ensures food isn't wasted and is consumed on the day itself. Major junk of waste that comes out from any party is in the form of food so minimizing wastage in that area is a must.

• Invest in products which will serve you in the long run and have multiple uses, with the home growing with the arrival of a baby, new purchases will keep happening however, bank roll goes shorter after the kid, so investing in things which will serve you and not sit idle in one corner will be beneficial. Hence, avoid buying expensive fancy decorative items which will actually be thrown on the floor later once your child starts picking up things.

All in all, make it exciting, beautiful, memorable, budget friendly, engaging and free flowing!

A working mommy of one son, currently associated with the Ed-tech sector, She has done MBA in International business and has lived and worked in three countries- UAE, New Zealand and India. Sanya has a knack at different parenting styles in the world, mainly the western style and the Indian style. She is a shopaholic, who loves to travel and write, and is very active on social media platforms.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mom Store.