Here’s a look at how you can do an online/ Virtual baby shower of your own and how I did mine.
There’s no telling how things are going to go now days and myself being in the military traveling home for a baby shower isn’t an option. And with many things unknown having a bunch of people in your home or around a crowd may not be the safest option for you or your baby. Here is a step by step guide on how to do a virtual baby shower in 2020!
1. Decide if a virtual baby shower is for you- right now staying away seems like a no brainer but a pandemic won’t last forever; making future virtual baby showers a less obvious choice. A baby shower is meant to be shared with friend and family, the goal isn’t get as much free stuff as you can. It SHOULD be sharing your pregnancy with the ones you love and a way to learn from their experiences. If I could, I would have a shower at home with all my friends and family with way too much food and laughs and all my aunts trying to come up with an excuse not to play the games.
2. Pick a platform (Facebook, Zoom, Skype etc.)- this is important because you should try and consider what most people already have or what will be easiest for them to get for your shower. It’s also important to consider when deciding HOW you want to do your shower. I wanted an engaged approach to try and simulate something close to a real one; I made a Facebook group. You can also go the other route and send everyone your registry and say tune into my zoom class on this day at this time and have that be the only interaction. That make be a good option for some, but a baby shower was important for me so I chose Facebook and tried to get everyone involved. (It’s also a good way to remind people about your shower without being annoying)
3. Decide how you want to do it; I mentioned way one above. It’s certainly the easier way but in my opinion (with no judgement) it’s completely heartless. You might as well say ‘hey just buy me all this stuff, thanks.’ The second way and how I did my virtual baby shower is as follows:
- I chose Facebook; most of my family already has it and it’s a great way to connect with my boyfriends family. It’s also super easy to create a private group and control everything.
- I made a Facebook group about a month out from the day I picked for my shower. Be sure your group has a relevant name and a picture that is you or resembles you; this is so people know it’s not some random group. I named mine ‘Baby Manske Neuberger 2020’ and put a picture of me and my belly as the header. I included both our names because we are not married and both our families were in one group.
- I made a group description saying Welcome, what to expect, and dates of when everything was happening.
- I posted on my personal Facebook letting family and friends know that group invites will coming out and if anyone wants to be included or not included, to let me know. (Remember that virtual parties aren’t for everyone)
- Send out your invites! I made the group private but enabled it so ‘friends’ could invite ‘friends.’ This helped with extended family and my boyfriends family and friends who I do not have on social media.
- Share your first post. Welcome everyone, include pictures, dates, plans and a thank you.
- AFTER you welcome everyone one then send the link to your registry or info where people can find it and your mailing address (for things bought outside the registry and letters/ pictures) -if you’re not comfortable with everyone in the group knowing your address they shouldn’t be in your ((private)) group. Remind people to include their mailing address in the gift note or message it to you. This is so you can send Thank You cards and prizes.
- If you do it like we did your house will seem become flooded with Amazon boxes. We chose to open the huge boxes and assemble the furniture included so we could show everyone her room finished. We also consolidated a lot of the smaller items and wrote down who got what so we could thank them!
- One thing that kept sending thank yous organized was I kept a list in a note book, saying who got what. So I could make them more personalized and show how much I truly appreciated it! You also won’t be getting all the gifts at once so it can be more difficult to keep track than a regular baby shower.
- The day your shower comes, it can be exciting. You can get all dressed up, get some snacks and decorations and sit down with your friends and family… through the phone. I wish we would have done it more like that but man was I exhausted, I was in leggings and a Tshirt being my authentic self. Haha
- We announced in the group when it was a day before, an hour and then right before I went live! We have family in all different time zones so we had to be sure to pick a good time for everyone!
- Once we got one we just chatted for a few minutes waiting for most people to get on our live, once we were ready we played a few games, revealed the winners of the games we did on Facebook and showed off our baby girls room. We showed all sorts of things and mentioned who got what and how excited we were to use it. We made sure to interact with everyone in the comments and just chat!
- Once you are done then you can say your goodbyes and be sure to share the live so that people who couldn’t attend can still watch on their own time!
- Send your thank you cards within a couple weeks of the shower and you are all set!
Thank you for reading this post and let me know if you have any questions!
Everything Isabella 