frugal engagement/shower ideas

[trelawney8]

I've got a recently engaged good friend and only a matter of time before I'm going to have to put on a maid of honor cap.

Does anyone have suggestions for fun and frugal ways to execute the responsibilities of celebration?

[PrairieRose]

It may not be the most frugal idea that you've ever heard but what we do in our area is this:

When word gets around about an engagement/upcoming wedding a close friend of the bride or grooms' usually starts putting out the word that we need to put together a shower for "so and so".
Then people will hear about it, call this person and say I want to help with the shower or sometimes someone will say we can have it at my house.
Next we usually keep the list open until we have about 15 - 20 people and then cut it off, just saying I think we have plenty of hostesses now.
We will have a planning meeting and discuss what time/where to have the shower. We almost always do that at someone's house, hence costing us no money.
Everyone at the meeting will volunteer for something....like I'll do the punch, I'll do the corsages, etc......I sometimes offer to do the invitations and buy cardstock and make my own with a nice little rubber stamp for decoration. That way we're not out for having them printed at a shop. It's about 1/2 price this way.
Usually the person in charge will say ok if you want to do that then if your expenses go over $10 or so, let me know and we'll include the overage in the cost.
At the end, we get a nice hostess gift (around $200), add that and the other over and above costs in and split it between us all. It's not usually more than about $20 total.
Hope this helps.....