Bridgerton Wedding Shower

Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton on Netflix was another smash hit for the acclaimed producer. Young women everywhere have fallen in love with the dashing Duke.

The steamy drama follows the high society lives of two families in Regency London navigating both romance and scandal.

Bridgerton is a perfect theme for a wedding shower, bringing together romance, period decor and music, fancy dress and, of course, a lavish British tea.

Here’s what I did for the Bridgerton shower I crafted for a lovely neighbor last week.

The Invitations

Both Etsy and Zazzle have adorable Bridgerton invitations, complete with Lady Whistledown’s latest gossip newsletter.

You may want to ask your guests to wear a Bridgerton dress for full effect.

Setting the Stage

At the entry to the house: purple wisteria, the signature look, a table with the welcome sign, a large mirror and fans, tiaras and lacy gloves for all of the attendees to don.

The Instagram Wall

This was the first stop inside the party.

Being a stone’s throw from Hollywood, I wanted to get a real Duke in costume to take a photo with each girl and escort them in, but the cost would have put us way over budget, so we settled for a life sized cutout of the Duke standing in front of a green boxwood wall with a cutout gold banner saying “I burn for you” (you have to watch the show,)

The wall is full height, as is the Duke and the letters are gold glitter cutouts.

Two friends of the hostess came in Bridgerton dresses and one manned the welcome table and one took the girls’ photos with the Duke.

The Venue

The shower was held at the Mother of the Groom’s beautiful hilltop Southern California home. The cocktails were served poolside and the brunch entree at round tables on the lawn. Because we’d been having very warm weather, even for August, we decided to serve tea and desserts and open presents inside – where the air conditioner reigned supreme.

Music

We had a lovely harpist for the cocktail hour and meal.

Added Decor

We put a Bridgerton dress on a mannequin, blew up a photo of the Bridgerton couple and rented a few period sofas for casual seating.

Cocktails

Fortunately, the Hostess has a permanent bar in the backyard with a lovely stone top, so we were able to use that as our self service bar. At each end, we had a floral arrangement with our event colors – pink, purple and white – and a pink parasol, similar to this image but with much bolder colors.

Bottles of pink Prosecco had custom Bridgerton labels. We also served pink lemonade and water and had two silver bowls of nuts.

Pink plastic champagne glasses (a must around a pool).

The Brunch

We used four round tables, with the head table in the center on a concrete pad with a pergola above. We were lucky enough to find a wonderful chandelier to attach to the center of the pergola and we finished the rest of the eaves with wisteria for this effect:

Pink, purple and white tulle made beautiful tie backs on the pergola.

The tables were set with purple satin cloths and matching napkins, ornate plastic gold flatware, gold trimmed glasses and a gold frame with a crown holding a placecard. We gave each woman a royal title for the day. Gold cake stands held flower centerpieces in our pink, purple and white colors.

The tables also had two ornate gold photo frames: one with a photo of the Bridgerton couple and one with a photo of our wedding couple, along with pearl strings and cut glass pieces.

Believe it or not, these are paper plates. They were used to serve the brunch dish, which was a quiche with a mixed green salad and a mini fresh baked croissant. We decided to go with a light menu, both because of the heat and because there were so many delicious pastries waiting at the dessert table.

The tables and the food were lovely and the harp music divine. When the plates were cleared, a rousing game of Bridgerton Bingo was announced.

Tea and Pastries

We moved into the Dining Room and Living Room for tea, pastries and gifts.

Because the dining area looks nothing like an English garden, we covered one wall edge to edge with a garden backdrop. The tablecloth was pink rosettes and we had two ostrich feather centerpieces standing very tall. What we wanted was a very colorful table with mismatched china serving pieces at all different levels and an abundance of mini pastries (we planned 4 pieces per person). We did a lot of glueing china cups together and china plates to candle holders sprayed gold. What fun we had with this!

We had two 6” cakes, 16 of Panera’s mini scones, 24 See’s chocolates….6 each of 4 kinds, 12 cake pops, 16 Bridgerton cookies, 12 mini cupcakes, 12 mini cheesecakes and 24 macarons of assorted flavors. And a lot of crumbs left over!