Bridal Shower Menu Ideas-Easy and Elegant

Bridal Shower Buffet

A Bridal shower menu can be as simplistic or as detailed as the host(or bride) wants it to be.

After an engagement has been announced, parties for the happy couple begin. 

A bride may have several bridal showers thrown for her by different groups of friends, so it is important to plan this party well in advance.

 The Bride may have co-workers, family, church members, or different circles of friends. It is custom for the first bridal shower to be given by the bride's parents or the bride's mother.  A tea or a garden party is the best way to take care of a number of relatives and friends.

Easy Bridal Shower Menu

Since many of the guests who will be invited to a bride's party plan to give a wedding gift or already gave one, shower gifts can be tricky. If you are invited to a shower, come up with something which costs very little.

One of the best type of showers, especially when older women are invited, is a recipe shower. Even today with the popularity of the Food Network, this type of shower would be appropriate. A notation on the invite can say- “Come and bring your favorite recipe for (honoree) who will need all the help she can get." The hostess at a recipe shower should supply the file box or a decorated binder to keep the recipes in.

Guests should be instructed to write the recipe on a card (hostess may even enclose some filing cards, uniform size, in the invitation). The recipe should have the name of the donor - a good way for the bride to remember her old friends. If you have the time you could collect the recipes in advance and make them into a book using cafepress or lulu(self publishing websites).

The food for this party will be most attractive set up as a buffet. The main item for this bridal shower menu is a sandwich loaf which is beautiful to look at, easy to make, delicious to eat and can be made up ahead of time. If you can make a sandwich and ice a cake, you can turn out a beautiful sandwich loaf.

Directions For Making Sandwich Loaf                                  A Bridal Shower Menu Centerpiece

Buy a loaf of unsliced white bread, day old bread is better than fresh bread. Remove the crusts from the loaf of bread. Cut into four lengthwise slices. Spread each of the first three slices with a sandwich filling. Three which blend well are ham salad, pimiento cheese, and a mixture of finely chopped sweet pickle and shredded lettuce. Top with the final slice of bread.

Soften three or four three-ounce packages of cream cheese with milk or cream and frost the outside of the loaf. Decorate the outside with part of the cream cheese which has been forced through a pastry tube. Or the loaf can be decorated with flowers and leaves cut from pimiento, green pepper and carrots. Chill in refrigerator before serving. Place on a big glass or silver platter to serve. The base may be garnished with stuffed eggs, tomato wedges and parsley. Individual sandwich loaves can be made in the same way.

In a buffet setting, the sandwich loaf is the center of things. To serve, slice down like a meat loaf. Complete the menu with pecan or other tarts and beverage. The tarts and the sandwich loaf make a lovely table.

Elegant Bridal Shower Menu

Chocolate Orange Truffles