Last month I had the pleasure of planning and hosting a baby shower for my big sister (wait… are adults allowed to still call their siblings “little” and “big? -you know what I mean), while on one had I was happy to be able to help out and “design” something, but on the other I was bummed that I let myself get dragged into yet another disaster waiting to happen family functions. If any of you know me you know that I absolutely hate planning and attending parties, I prefer more intimate settings. So my first thought was where do I start!??! Remember this is “Mrs. I don’t do parties” and so I’m not exactly sure about how this is supposed to go down. Of course I hopped on Google first thing and typed “How to plan a baby shower” and was immediately overwhelmed with all of the results, I felt like all of the ideas were “overly designed” because lets be real this is only a 3 hour party… at max! So no need to spend tons of money. So in light of my “greenness” in party planning I’ve outlined some of the budget-friendly resources I looked to when planning my first baby shower.
Oriental Trading- They pretty much have everything at this online store, from invitations to table cloths, you name it. They have a few a la carte invitation sets available, a few of them were super unique (baby bottles as invitations) but they are most strong in their decoration and favor department. If you need to coordinate with very specific colors or ethnic groups (check out the little black babies 
), then this is your place. They have a ton of good pre-printed baby shower games for purchase too.
I Didn’t end up purchasing from this site, but I’ve heard great things about them.
Party City- They have a huge assortment of invitations at pretty decent prices, however you will find these to be pretty standard designs, if you are looking for unique you may want to bypass. I saved them as my “last resort” if I couldn’t find what I needed online, since I could easily go into one of their retail locations for any last minute items.
We ended up buying:
Balloons
Last minute wall decorations
Favor Candy
Baby Shower confetti
Dollar Tree- Do not sleep on this one. I think this is one of the best dollar stores I’ve been in, yes even over 99 cent only. Here’s why, Dollar tree actually has a huge party planning section with every theme from baby showers to Luaus. They also have a good assortment of a little bit of everything; invitations, tableware (awesome buy for $1/each), favors, centerpieces and even games. While nothing is very unique, who cares when even everything is only $1?! This is where we ended up buying most of our supplies from.
We ended up buying:
10 ct. Invitations (3)
48 ct. Tableware (4)
Tablecloths (6)
Servingware (cake cutter, serving platters, etc)
18 ct. Plates (themed and unthemed as backup) (3)
24 ct.Dessert Plates (unthemed) (2)
12 ct. Cups (themed and unthemed as backup) (3)
20 ct. Napkins (themed) (3)
Curling ribbon (for the balloons and a game)
2 Mini Whiteboards (for a game)
4 Baby bottles (for a game)
2 ct. Streamers
3 Balloon weights
Amazon.com- Of course you can get a lot of your items here, however I only purchased mini translucent favor boxes for $15 for 30 boxes to fit candy (similar to these).
We ended up buying:
10 ct. Translucent favor boxes (3)
99 Cent (why is there no cent sign on the keyboard?) Only Stores- I was disappointed here. I thought for sure they would be able to match DollarTree’s inventory, but nope, at my local store they only carried a huge selection of wedding supplies and themed children party supplies. I ended up finding 2 sets of silver gift boxes to put the game prizes in, each pack had 2 boxes so I purchased 2 of them. Also, no online ordering.
Babyshower101- I used this site to research general etiquette and for game ideas, as they have over 200 game ideas. I ended up using 4, this was including 1 game as backup if I needed to stall time. This site is great for a newbie like me.
That’s it, I kept it ultra simple and tried to stick to the base colors to be sure not to overwhelm the room with too many different themes (since I bought everything at different stores). Below is a photo of how things looked after we put everything together. I opted for a U shape with the tables to allow the group to interact with each other better, I think it helped. Another thing to note is that I planned for a rather large baby shower, 30 people, so of course if your shower is smaller you wont have to purchase as much.
Here’s what everything looked like… again, one time event, 3 hrs. why spend a ton?
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