When I was engaged to be married, my family and friends wanted to know what kind of bridal shower I wanted. I knew right away that I wanted something that would integrate my love for cultures, travel, and also something educational that my guests would learn while there. I chose the theme: Around the World. The party was set for Sunday, July 24, 2011 and we booked it at the Westinghouse Room at the Holiday Inn Pittsburgh Airport hotel.

There are so many themes you can go with and to encompass all of them would be astounding and expensive. I kept a notebook and looked through magazines, theknot.com, Googling ideas.

I never found anything quite like mine because I had my own ideas too. I did feel very involved in the planning a little because of the ideas I had. I gave all the ideas to my mom and sister to help. I chose for invitations, a luggage tag. To go along with the invitations, I wanted a suitcase cake with patches from around the world. Everyone was fooled that it was a cake until they went up to it. I chose to have the cake filled with chocolate cake with chocolate Bavarian crème and strawberry swirl cake with strawberry filling. It was a huge hit all around. The outside of the cake was made of fondant and it really looked like a pair of luggage with patches on it.

For decoration ideas, I really wanted something different. So, I told the ladies in my wedding party that I would make the centerpieces. Since sixty people were coming to my bridal shower, I made eleven centerpieces (one for the cake table too), and decided to spread people out at ten tables, six people to a table. I wanted each table to be a country. I chose: Mexico, Greece, Italy, France, Japan, China, Australia, Kenya, Egypt, Brazil, and U.S.A. I bought oatag paper and hand-drew each country on one side of the paper. On the back, I researched the wedding traditions of each country. I snipped pictures out of honeymoon and travel magazines and decorated each centerpiece to be unique.

Another decoration idea was a mini-Christmas tree (about 3 feet in height), and decorating it with the around the world ornaments that I collect. I also had lots of global decorations to decorate the Christmas tree table with: a Dutch shoe, a set of Matryoshka Russian stacking dolls, a stuffed Chihuahua dog that had a colorful poncho and a sombrero, and a soccer ball with every flag of the world that I bought for my husband at a National Association of Foreign Student Advisors (NAFSA) Conference, the year before. In addition to these decorations, I saved a Global calendar for an entire year that had pictures from all over the world. Beautiful destinations were shown and it really added a lot of color to the head table, cake and prize tables, and all over.

A friend of mine made an Around the World word search to play at the shower. You can play other games too like: Language of Love match-up game where you match up the language of the word love from the selected countries listed too or ask questions/trivia about the bride and where she traveled or something creative and similar. For prizes, I asked each of my bridesmaids to make a themed global basket of either a country or a holiday celebrated in at least one other country around the world. My girlfriends made these themed baskets: Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, Australia, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and Halloween. My original idea for the themed baskets was actually to have an international chocolate basket, international coffee/tea basket, Dutch Garden basket, international movies/games basket, in addition to the country or holiday baskets. You can do a lot with each one of the themes.

I originally wanted some form of entertainment at my bridal shower. A local steel drum band that I used to be a part of was due to come out to play but due to cost, my family and friends throwing me the shower thought maybe it would take time away from the actual party. However, if you want entertainment, book it. People love entertainment and it can be fun! You can have hula dancers, Greek dancing, steel drummers, Irish dancers, Japanese drummers or a traditional tea ceremony, an instruction on Karate, an interactive entertainment session where everyone can learn to decorate Easter eggs called Tucanje native from the Baltic countries. It’s your choice and people love entertainment!

My favor was a cookie cutter in the shape of a maple leaf with a sugar cookie recipe on it. The Maple leaf can symbolize where you’re honeymooning: Canada, where the maple leaf is on the flag or maybe you’re having a fall themed wedding. Speaking of honeymoons, a bridal shower like this, I registered with Traveler’s Joy, a honeymoon website where people can contribute to your honeymoon but I also registered at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for people who wanted to contribute a traditional gift (which was also much needed!) .

The food is also something that you can get creative with; depending on the theme, you can choose food items or desserts from that country. The food picked at my bridal shower wasn’t exactly international: salad, chicken romane with rice and summer grilled veggies and cake for dessert. Fruit punch, lemonade and water were also served. You can get creative with the food and have a buffet of a selection of international specialties from a few selected countries.

My bridal shower was a huge hit. Everyone loved the theme and really embraced the details. I felt so blessed to have gotten opportunity to have such a cool themed party and one that truly reflected me and Fernando. We also put out scrapbooks that I created of the past four years together to highlight a more personal feel to the shower. Everyone really enjoyed the details about the bridal shower and they learned a lot about me and Fernando at the same time! I recommend it to anyone!

Anastasia R.D. Lopez, is a newlywed who is currently pursuing her Master of Arts in Educational Leadership in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is a Career Educator and Advisor at WMU for the College of Arts and Sciences. Anastasia received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Hospitality and Tourism Management degree from Robert Morris University in Moon Township, PA. She’s passionate about study abroad and international education, loves bowling, and collects global ornaments for her international Christmas tree. She is also the Global Education Editor for Wandering Educators.