Whether a baby shower, engagement party, or office bash, any party is more memorable when people get to know each other. Before these games are done, your guests’ conversation will take on a life of its own.
Portrait of Fun
For a game that kids and grown ups will love, partypop.com suggests pulling out your crayon box and drawing on your artistic abilities.
Each guest gets a piece of paper with the name of another guest on it. Have guests find the person listed on their paper and draw a picture of that person with the party’s hosts. This will get people talking to each other, figuring out how they know the hosts and in the end, the hosts get a handmade album to remember the fun.
Party Guest Scavenger Hunt
Create a scavenger hunt especially for and about your guests. Think of the things that people having in common, but may not be aware of. These are perfect items for your scavenger hunt list. For example: Get the names of two people who have raised chickens. Find the three people who have studied geology and get the name of a mineral from each. The people who are on the list will be able to learn what they have in common with your other guests.
You can have players get a secret word or special item from a particular guest — but give that guest advanced warning. Mix it up by having players do or say something to another guest. For example, give the birthday girl a kiss. Players can have the birthday girl sign the checklist.
Modify the scavenger hunt by asking player to take digital pictures of the items or images on the list.
Ad Lib It Up
For parties with word lovers, games can be a fun way to stir up the creativity. And it’s as easy as writing a story you already know by heart.
Write up a short story or anecdote about the guest of honor or the hosts of the event. For a bridal shower or baby shower, it can be the story of the couple’s courtship; for a housewarming party, it could be the trials and tribulations of the house hunt or how the owner knew this was the dream house. Make it funny, quirky, or sweet depending on your style.
Next make a copy of the story and take out various action words, descriptors, and nouns and replace them with underlined blanks. In grayed-out type in or below the blanks give your players a clue about what kind of word they should fill in (noun, adjective, present tense verb).
When choosing which words to replace with blanks, it’s best to limit the blanks to one or two per sentence. Keep enough words so players can tell the gist of what the story is about. Blank out words that you can easily imagine funny replacements for. Replacing “ride,” “fast,” or “bicycle” could lead to a variety of silly versions of the story, while replacing “is” might lead to confusion.
Print the story with the blanks and with instructions on the top.
Have players quiz other guests for the words to fill in the blanks and then read the resulting story back to the table or the whole group. Print the real story on the back or read it aloud after the ad libbed alternatives have been read.
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