Prepare for showers, get out your umbrellas! Rainy days and showers, what a great theme for a baby shower. And of course, parasols, umbrellas, and rain boots used as décor drive the point home rather neatly.
The rainy day theme starts with the invitations, of course. They can be either printed with umbrellas and parasols, be in a parasol shape, or be a 3-D invitation decorated with the open top of a paper parasol. Or, a nice touch would be to roll up the invitations instead of putting them in envelopes, tying them up with coordinating ribbon, and adding a paper parasol to the bow.
The décor should be full of rainy day gear, too. Either used an aquatic color theme like pale blue, aqua, and silver, or bright colors like hot pink, lime green and sunny yellow in imitation of the colors of rain boots and pretty parasols. An eye-catching centerpiece for the tables would be a single rain boot used as a vase for flowers. Scatter the tables with umbrella-shaped confetti. If the room is big enough and you're up to it, center the food table with an open paper parasol (it's much lighter than an umbrella) suspended from the ceiling. Fill the inner part of the parasol with silk flowers in the color scheme and wait for the gasps of surprise. Finish off the handle of the parasol with a large bow and hang the streamers down as low as possible.
The theme can extend to the food, too. Using parasols to decorate the food and drinks would be an obvious touch. You can also have cupcakes with the tops iced to look like open parasols, a cake decorated with a sugar parasol, or even have the cake in the shape of an open umbrella, handle and all. Let your imagination fly with this one!
Keep to the aquatic theme with the music. You can actually search for lyrics that use the words “rain,” “showers,” and “thunder” and collect those songs as 'exclamation points' for your music selection. Keep the mood light; lounge music is great for this kind of a baby shower.
As for games, keep the parasol in use there, too. You can play a version of “Dress-Up” using a raincoat, rain boots, and a parasol. Opposing teams have to get all dressed up for a rainy day then have to run a short obstacle course before taking off the rainy-day getup and passing on to the next person in line.
And finally for the party favors, umbrellas or parasols would be a great choice to tie up the theme. A rain hat could also be a nice little gift, or stationery that has an umbrella or rainy day theme. Or if you like, little plushies dressed up in raincoats would be very cute (think Paddington Bear) and totally appropriate for this theme.
So don't say, “Rain, rain, go away!” This could be
your most fun theme for a baby shower ever.