What to Wear to a Bridal Shower

At the wedding there are three hundred people and the attention is spread out. At a shower there are twenty, everybody is photographed properly, and the bride is at the centre of all of it.

So, the rule about not outshining her applies harder here, not less. You can look excellent. You should not look like the main event.

Follow the colour if one was given

If she sent a colour, wear the colour. This is not the moment to interpret it loosely.

The whole point is that the photographs look coordinated, and one person in a different shade is visible in every single frame. If the colour genuinely does not suit you, go for a deeper or lighter version of the same family rather than something else entirely.

White is out, as always, unless she specifically asked for it. Some brides do ask everyone to wear white, and in that case she will have said so clearly.

It is usually indoors and cold

Most showers happen in a hotel suite, a private dining room or somebody's house with the air conditioning running hard for several hours.

Which makes this one of the few occasions here where you can wear something lighter without regretting it, and also one where a wrap is worth carrying. Sitting still in a cold room for three hours is different from moving through one.

There will be games and there will be sitting

Bridal showers involve a surprising amount of sitting on the floor, standing up for photos, playing something that requires you to move, and being handed things.

So nothing too short, nothing you have to hold in place, and nothing that only works when you are standing still. The dress should let you forget about it.

What works

Something feminine and softer than you would wear to the wedding itself. A midi in a pretty colour, good fabric, not heavily structured.

The register is dressed up but relaxed. More than lunch, less than a reception. If you would wear it to a nice restaurant on a Saturday afternoon and feel slightly dressed up, that is about the level.

Heels are fine but low ones are smarter, because you will be on your feet more than you expect and some of it will be on grass or around a pool.

What to avoid

Anything black unless the theme calls for it, because it reads as too serious for the occasion and photographs heavily in a room full of pastels.

Anything with a very dramatic silhouette, which in a room of twenty people is a lot. And anything you would wear to a club, because showers are often attended by the bride's mother and aunties as well as her friends.

Shop AMARAÉ for dresses that suit the occasions between lunch and a wedding. Delivery across Nigeria and worldwide.