Kitchen tea activities have matured since the days my gran used to volunteer my services to look after the kids of women who couldn’t find babysitters. I’d sneak a peek as my aunts and their friends would basically haze the bride with traditional games that often involved eating/drinking disgusting concoctions and having their already questionable outfits covered in eggs and flour (this might be a cultural thing, I don’t know as I’ve only been on multicultural guest lists since becoming an adult so can’t compare it to the past).

But kitchen tea activities are more civilised now, I like to think… and these are my top five activities to get the guests involved and none of them include publicly humiliating the bride…I mean unless she’s into that sort of thing.

These kitchen tea activities are inspired by bridesmaid duties at my sister’s party that took place this weekend.

– Wearable guest book

I cut out a super basic apron design (you can buy a plain one for quite cheap) and instructed my sister to wear it. She then walked around the room greeting her guests with a jar of fabric markers. Each one signed or drew a picture and she was left with a one of a kind memento of the big day.

– pass the parcel ice breaker

I wrapped small gifts like you do for the traditional pass the parcel game with a biggish gift as the last prize and every layer offering something small from little makeup brushes to lotion samples. (I asked the bridesmaids to check their drawers for those samples you get in magazines but never get around to using and bought a few mini things). Then you pass the parcel by literally throwing it across the room to the person of your choice who needs to introduce themselves with a little anecdote about the bride and they get a little gift for their efforts.

– handbag treasure hunt

This is an old favourite…A quick Google search would give you a bunch of printable options…basically each guest gets a list of items to find in their bag. Each item is allocated a number of points and the one with the most points at the end wins. You’d be suprised at what people have in their bags.

– gift bingo

Hand out blank bingo cards and have guests fill in items they expect the bride to receive. Glasses, spoons, whatever (and yes people do tend to “cheat” and write down what they brought). Then as the bride opens her gifts people tick off what she received and you give out prizes accordingly. This is a nice alternative to the awkwardness of “guess who bought you this” … omgosh Eleanor did you buy me this washing machine?! Nope my gift is the mugs in the back. You know what I’m talking about!

– trick or treat

Another alternative is to take dice and stick blank stickers over the numbers. Now write in the words trick and treat on alternative sides. Every time the bride opens a gift the gift givers says “that’s from me” and the bride then rolls the dice and gets a trick or a treat from the gift giver…A trick would be something ridiculous like twerk to the Paw Patrol theme song or rap the lyrics to twinkle little star and a treat would be a word of encouragement or some advice.

These are some ideas for prizes…

What are your favourite kitchen tea activities? Stuffing your face doesn’t count… I lie it totally counts. Also do you remember those “traditional parties”?

PS. Do share if you found this interesting or maybe share and be like, friends, check out how uninteresting Eleanor is hahaha.