There’s hardly an occasion more exciting than the arrival of your little one. Whether you’re a first-time parent or well-versed in the trials and tribulations of child-rearing, the birth of a child always calls for a celebration.
While hosting a baby shower usually calls for extensive planning and budgeting, much of this fuss is taken away when your baby shower goes virtual.
Still, less planning doesn’t mean no planning, so here are several tips we’ve gathered to make sure your virtual baby shower goes off without a hitch.
Set the date for your baby shower
Weekends are the most popular time to host baby showers, but make sure to get your guest list ready and let your invitees know at least 2 weeks in advance of your planned event. This way, they have ample time to RSVP and send gifts for the baby. You can choose to go the formal route and mail out paper invites, but e-invites are all the rage these days as they’re cost-effective and easy to design. There are a massive number of templates available online, and our favourite site to use when designing invitations is Canva.
Pick the best platform
When deciding on a platform to host your shower, consider its accessibility and ease of usage, just in case you’re inviting older members of your family who might not be as tech-savvy.
Take note also of the benefits and limitations of each platform — Zoom allows up to 100 participants on its basic service but limits the time for each meeting to 40 minutes. Skype has no such limit, allowing video calls to take place for up to 4 hours, but its server is only able to host 50 participants per group call. Make sure you pick the right platform to suit your needs!
Set the scene based on your theme
Different but no less special, virtual baby showers allow you to play host from the comfort of your own home, making the event an appropriately intimate affair while avoiding those pesky venue rental fees. Furthermore, the pressure to decorate is greatly lessened — the space you need to make presentable is limited to what you choose to show your guests, so decor or no decor, it’s all up to you!
For those who do choose to decorate, baby shower decor can be purchased online — party balloons, customisable banners, fairy lights and tinsel curtain backdrops will instantly liven up any space.
Parents can even opt to create a virtual baby shower guestbook — simply pick an online server with collaborative tools (Google Slides does the trick) — jazz up your blank slides if you wish, and create a shareable link you can pop into your invitations. Guests can then fill up the slide deck with messages of their own.
Introduce popular baby shower games
While it’s all a matter of preference and many baby shower events are free and easy, you might want to have an agenda set up for your virtual baby shower. Consider a variety of games conducive to a virtual environment or use the time to open presents, read messages, and personally thank your guests.
Popular baby shower games that can easily be taken online include a modified version of ‘The Price is Right’, where parents hold up baby items (say, a tin of infant formula) and guests try their best to guess the prices. Another game often played involves matching baby animals to their parents (cygnet to swan, kit to fox). For games that go truly virtual, we love skribbl.io, a Pictionary-inspired game that allows 12 people to play together in a private room as you guess each other’s drawings under a time limit.
Bring everyone together with good food
It’s true that a virtual baby shower can’t completely replicate the sociability of a real-life celebration, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make your guests feel involved.
The best way to do this? Food. There’s nothing better than eating together to make people feel like they’re part of the experience. Grain offers individually packed meals that can be delivered to numerous locations, so your baby shower guests can enjoy restaurant-quality meals wherever they are.
Take your pick of Grain’s Signature bento boxes, from the flavourful Tobiko Dill Aburi Salmon on roasted sesame capellini to the Chunky Crunchy Chilli Crab, a decadent pairing of crab meat in classic chilli sauce and crisp soft-shell crab on a buttery brioche.
Those who opt for the Bento Basics will find themselves spoiled for choice, with selections like the Hearty Coconut Beef Rendang served with butterfly blue pea rice, soft potato chunks and wok-fried okra.
If you’re looking to impress your guests with tea-time treats, Grain also offers a variety of scrumptious savouries and pastries. Sous-vide Chicken Breast Sandwich, Crispy Netted Prawn Roll, Kluang Otah and Steamed Chicken Siew Mai are just some of the treats you’ll find in one of our savoury boxes, while those with a sweet tooth might prefer the box with Vanilla Chocolate Cake, Torched Lemon Meringue Tart, Chocolate Swirl Marble Pound Cake and finger sandwiches of the Fresh Egg Mayo and Chipotle Mushroom variety.
Add-on a mixed fruit parcel, cold-pressed fruit juices or white cold brew coffee, and you’re set to make this a baby shower your guests will never forget. It’s the perfect way to mark your baby’s first milestone!
