Planning Your Virtual Baby Shower
Hi everyone. Doulas of Raleigh Co-Owner Heather here. My sweet little sister is expecting her first baby this spring. Of course, I knew I wanted to throw her a baby shower. Initially we planned to have an in-person yet socially distanced shower at an outdoor park. As we got closer to the potential shower date, however, COVID-19 cases were spiking and my sister very smartly made the call to move the shower online.
Initally I was freaking out. Sure, I had taught some private classes via Zoom but I had not hosted an online event for more than just a couple of participants at a time. So I did what any panicked, Gen-X/technologically challenged person would do…I crowdsourced. I Googled virtual baby shower. I asked both past and current clients what worked and didn’t work for their virtual baby showers. Then I came up with a plan.
The first thing I did was figure out which platform to use for the shower. I ended up going with Zoom because that way up to 100 participants could join the event. Since this was my sister’s only baby shower I wanted her to be able to invite as many people as she wanted.
Next I created the invitations. I am sure I could have easily done this via Evite but I wanted something a little nicer so I used Paperless Post. This did cost some money but I had budgeted for this. Paperless Post allowed me to pick a cute design and include the Zoom link, the link to my sister’s baby registry, and even had a place for people to write comments and include their addressses (very helpful for thank you notes!). Once the invites were ready I sent them out about 3 weeks ahead of the baby shower. Paperless Post also keeps up with RSVPS and regrets so it was easy to keep up with who was planning to attend the event.
After the invitations were sent I was ready to plan the agenda for the virtual baby shower. We had a 2 hr time slot and I had heard from other folks that this time was best spent in a structured way so I got out my organizational skills. Here’s the rough outline of what I had planned: Welcome and Intro of parents-to-be, allowed time for guest introductions, played a few fun games (more on this later), and time for my sister and her husband to open all the shower gifts that had been mailed to them. The 2 hrs ended up being the perfect amount of time for the shower.
Even though we were having the shower online I still wanted to mimic some of the same things that would happen at an in-person baby shower. Here are a few things that I did:
Decor…..I know there are ways to change the background on Zoom so that’s always on option. What I did, however, was find out the colors my sister was using in the baby’s nursery. Then I emailed all the shower participants the colors and asked everyone to wear a shirt that was one of those colors. That way the participants became the decor!
Food…I really wish I could have mailed cute little cupcakes to all the virtual shower participants but I didn’t really have the time or funds for that since participants were spread out all over the country. Instead, I encouraged all the participants to enjoy a tasty treat of their choosing during the shower. For the parents-to-be, however, I order a box of gluten-free cupcakes from a local bakery. My sister and I live close enough to each other that we were able to drive to a central meting point so I could give her the cupcakes the weekend of the shower.
Flowers….I called a local florist and had a corsage made for my sister to wear during the shower. This was a huge surprise for her when I gave it to her and one of the little details to make the shower special. She also got lots of comments from other shower participants about how pretty it was!
Games….Most in-person baby showers involve at least one or two fun games for the shower participants. Since we had a virtual shower planned we had to think of things that were easy to do on a virtual platform. I enlisted a dear friend of my sister’s (thanks, Martina!) to take care of this part of the shower. She created a couple of really fun and easy-to-do games…including Baby Shower Word Scramble, Name That Nursery Rhyme, and Match the Baby Animal Name to the Adult Animal Name. Martina did a great job screen-sharing and facilitating this part of the shower. The one small part I contributed to this portion involved me sending an email to shower participants to guess sex of baby, baby’s potental birthday, and baby’s potential weight. I told the participants I would update them once baby has arrived. I am planning to send a small Starbucks or Target gift card to the participant who comes closest to the date and weight.
While my sister and her husband opened gifts, I kept track of what they were given and from whom the gift came. I was able to email the list to my sister a few days after the shower so she could write and send her thank-you notes.
Overall, I think everyone had a really great time. I was nervous about hosting an online event but I think it went really well and my sister and her husband had a great time celebrating their first baby.