The last daze ~ I mean days before a wedding can be pretty intense, even for the most prepared and organized bride. And this is only because there's always so much to do, and a few things always seem to go wrong, or not go at all.
Helping to alleviate that stress and add some grace, sweetness to these days is the idea behind doing a Bless-the-Bride Blitz! Here's the basic idea for how this works...
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Each day before the wedding, for a certain number of days, one person does a blessing of some sort to the Bride on their chosen day. All participants have previously signed up for a day, so there is one such gift coming each day, and everyone knows what their day is.
On their designated day, each Bride-Blesser does whatever she (or he) wants to do for the Bride. Sooo many fun, simple, creative things have been done!
Let's start off with a pictorial blitz of a few of these gifts that were given to one of our blessed brides, Breanna, and then I'll blitz you with all the ideas and suggestions you'll need to be able to do one of these yourself:
WHO TO INVITE
TO PARTICIPATE?
Just about anyone can be invited to participate in this. Females are most likely to want to do this, but guys are just as welcome! So think in terms of Mother-of-the-Bride, Father-of-the-Bride, Mother-in-love, Father-in-law, sisters, brothers, girlfriends, aunties, grandmothers, nieces, neighbors, people they know at church, and co-workers. Like I said, anyone! Well, other than probably not past boyfriends. That was the "just about anyone" part.
Even a young child can participate as long as they understand what's going on. Little ones can draw a picture (maybe of them and the Bride), and/or make a simple card!
These gifts don't need to be glitzy, fancy, or expensive.
Even people who live out of town can participate as things ~ a letter, special poem, photo(s) ~ can be sent by email or via the mail. If an out-of-towner opts to mail something, since it's hard to get something to a person via the Post Office on a certain day, they could mail it to the coordinator, and then she can get it to the Bride on the person's designated day.
HOW TO START
1) Two options:
A. Contact the mother-of-the-bride or the bride's closest sister or friend to get any info that will be needed, like where the bride works, her home address, her basic schedule ~ so that the Bride-Blessers will know where and when to take their gift. So this one is a letter to the mother or a sister or friends of the Bride, asking for their thoughts on it.
B. The other is a letter that you would send directly to the friends ~ the ones who will participate, if it's not necessary or appropriate to contact someone else first. You can customize either and send (email, text, or Facebook message) either letter. You are welcome to just copy and paste ~ and then personalize ~ this letter, and discard the rose. I just couldn't leave the page naked!I have provided two FREE PRINTABLE letters for you to personalize.
2) Write up a list of who to include in this using your own knowledge of the Bride and the info you get from her mom(s), sister(s), and/or friends.
3) Come up with a number of participants, and then decide how many days you'll be doing the Blitz. (Thoughts on this coming up in a moment.)
4) Set up a page for this at TakeThemAMeal.com. If you are doubling up on people, you can set this to take more than one "meal" per day, and also give them whatever names you want ~ like "Blesser #1" and "Blesser #2." (Specifics on how to use this service ~ which I have used literally hundreds of time for the Comfort/Baby Food ministry I lead ~ will be explained in another blog post, but it's actually very user-friendly and pretty easy to use. You do need to explain to the participants that they're not actually going to be taking a meal; that's just the name of the service. If anyone knows of a similar service that's not meal-based, please let me know!)
5) Send an invitation to be part of this joyous endeavor to everyone on your list. We generally use Facebook, but you may need to get email addresses of the Facebook Resistors who can't be contacted there. The invitation needs to include:
a link to the sign-up page
an explanation that the sign-up page is not actually to take her meals.
suggestions for how to do it on their day (like to ask her mom, co-worker, etc. where she'll be when, suggestions for how to deliver, etc.)
ideas for the gifts: book, cupcake, coffee, other gift, out to lunch (which is probably not a good idea as you get closer.)
contact and delivery information, like the addresses of the Bride's home and work place.
a suggestion to be sensitive to the bride and her full schedule as the idea behind this is to alleviate ~ not add to ~ stress.
BLESSING/GIFT
IDEAS
BRIDE'S FAVORITE COFFEE (OR OTHER) BEVERAGE
SPECIALTY CUPCAKE - that you know (or at least hope) she likes
BRIDE BLESSING BAG - This is what I do (make) for my gift for the Bride, and will share ideas for in just a moment!!! (Click on the photo of it to go to my article on how to make one of these!)
OUT TO LUNCH OR COFFEE - Make sure she feels she has the time to do this. (Sometimes brides I've known loved it; for others who were pressed for time, it felt pressurey.)
MUG - You could get just a bride-themed mug. Here's a darling one I found on Amazon:
FLOWERS - great option for a long-distance blesser since they can be delivered on a specific day!
CANDY - Chocolates in a box are always nice! Favorite candy bars or bagged candy would be fun too! (The chocolates I gave you a link to are not the ones pictured further above on this page; they just looked yummy!)
PHOTO or PHOTO COLLAGE - of you and the bride, or of her and her fiancé
And next, continuing the ideas, you get to hear from one of the brides herself ~ Bridget, who shares a few of the blessings that she received! (So these next six points are her talking.)
"My aunt surprised me at work with a GIANT HEART-SHAPED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE (which is my favorite) that said "1 week" on it!
The next was my dad! It was Sunday morning, so on his way back from first service at church [he plays guitar on worship team at both services] he brought me my favorite STARBUCKS DRINK and FLOWERS, and later that evening he gave me a beautiful bracelet!!
The next was sort of a silly one, it was a bag full of "THINGS ONE MIGHT NEED ON THEIR "WEDDING NIGHT" with funny descriptions on each one of what they were for. 🙈
The next happened to be on the day of my bachelorette party, so my sister spoiled me all day PAYING FOR EACH OF OUR ACTIVITIES that included going out for BRUNCH and PEDICURES.
A friend bought me a STARBUCKS DRINK and paid for my NAILS to be done for the wedding.
A super cute BOOK THAT YOU WRITE A MEMORY in each day for five years!"
TIMING
OF YOUR BLITZ
The number of days before the wedding you start this depends on the number of people you have who want to participate. So it works best to start by figuring out how many want to participate. (And, believe me, this isn't hard! People love doing this!!)
Are there, for example, 15 people who you have found who want to take part in this? Then start your Blitz two weeks and a day before the wedding!!
Does she know only a few gals ~ like 5 or 6? Then start 5 or 6 days before the wedding.
Does she know a lot of people? Like 30? Start a month ahead! Or double up and have two people do it each day. (If you have two a day, I'd just suggest to my Bride-blessers that there not be two "go somewhere" blessings in the same day.)
BRIDE
BLESSING BAG
As I mentioned above, this is what I like to do for my gift for the Bride! Here are the contents of the one I did for Bridget:
And here are the contents of the one I did for Breanna:
I included the extra bookmarkers in Breanna's gift bag, but also made extra's for Bridget's fiancee and sister later on and gave them to them at church. Sometimes I have time to do them to include in the bag; other times I don't.
I have written a whole separate blog article on these Bride Blessing Gift Bags, and it includes FREE printables, ideas, and tips!!! Click HERE.
All this said, even with all these instructions and ideas given, there are no hard 'n' fast "rules"! This is just a place to start! You can do your Bless-the-Bride Blitz any way you like, with any number of participants you like, with whomever you like, for any number of days you like, giving whatever gifts you like! You can even give it whatever name you like!
I'd love to hear from you in the comments! What you do differently, additionally ~ just anything fun!
There just isn't any way to do it wrong, and I will certainly not be checking up on you to make sure you did it "my way" ~ cuz I don't even have a way! ...
Just lots of
fun ideas to get you
started on doing whatever
works best for you,
your Bride and your
Bride-Blesser
gang!
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