How to throw the best baby or bridal shower

Baby shower

Invitations
Make baby-shower invitations into a mock library slip for the mom-to-be's “Great Expectations.” Write the party details on a vertical index card, stamp the book's due date with the baby's due date at the bottom (stamp is $19.99 @ staples.com), and mail the card in a coin envelope.

Who decides who is invited: the guest of honor or the host?
Since the host bears the expense of the party, it is up to her to determine the number of guests she's comfortable accommodating. If the shower is not a surprise, the host should give the honoree that figure and ask whom she'd like to invite. For a surprise party, the honoree's college roommate trumps the host's book club buddies.

How many guests are too many?
A shower should be an intimate affair, not a gathering of anyone and everyone the honoree has ever known. Limit the guest list to close friends and family. Keep in mind that if your home can hold only 20 people comfortably, inviting more is doing no one a favor. If the honoree is pushing you to invite more guests than you feel comfortable hosting, then you are within your rights to gently let her know why you can't give her what she wants.

Food and drink
Serve tea sandwiches (a sampling of cucumber, chicken salad and egg salad), sweet pea soup served in teacups and cranberry-ginger fizzes and passion fruit sparklers. Soup in teacups is easy to serve and a great use for that china you never use. For the cranberry-ginger fizzes and passion fruit sparklers, Real Simple also suggests serving two kinds of bubbly cocktails — one with alcohol and one without.

Decoration and set-up

• For a baby shower, it's child's play to turn ho-hum white napkins into little bundles of joy. Just knot a narrow ribbon around a plastic rattle, then loop the ribbon around the folded napkin and finish it off with a bow.
• Baby's breath has long been considered mere filler (and unwanted filler at that), but on it's own when gathered in a large, airy bunch, it's striking. Sold at most florist shops, it's inexpensive and neutral enough to work in any setting. Drop a generous handful into a tall ceramic or glass vase. (Baby's breath is about $15 for a large bunch, which can make 3 bouquets.)
• To give your shower a garden-party feel, buy small pots of thyme and slip in Popsicle sticks that identify the herb (and thanks to a play on words, announce the upcoming big day). The plants can double as party favors.

Activities
If you're throwing a baby shower, ask each guest to bring a photograph of herself as an infant. String the pictures along a wall with a clothesline and pins, and have guests try to decipher one adorable face from the next. You can keep it casual and have guests point out their pictures as they walk down the line. Or, to make a true game out of it, number the clothespins and have guests write down guesses as to which pin is holding whose photo. Keep a master list and act as judge. Added benefit: The clothesline doubles as a sweet decoration, and you can hang some of the cute shower loot — onesies, booties, bibs — on the line when the honoree is opening her gifts.

What if the guest of honor doesn't want a typical ladies-only, afternoon affair. Are there other ways to celebrate?
Try opening up the event to husbands and male friends, and ask guests to bring themed personal gifts, like entertainment tickets, items to stock a bar, or, in the case of a baby shower, food to fill the freezer. And remember, there's no rule that says the honoree has to open her gifts at the party.

If you're hosting a shower for someone, do you have to attend her other showers as well? And if so, do you need to bring a gift to each one?
If you're close enough to the bride or mom-to-be that you're throwing her a shower, you should try to make an appearance at one of the other showers if your schedule permits. However, if any of these showers requires a train, plane or lengthy car trip to attend, it is completely acceptable to decline politely, guilt-free. Whether you attend additional showers or not, there's no need to bring or send a second gift, since hosting a shower is like a second gift in and of itself. But if you feel uncomfortable arriving at a shower empty-handed, come with a small token, like a gift certificate for a manicure or a child's storybook.

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