While baby showers have traditionally been focused on pregnant moms, the trend is growing to celebrate the expecting couple instead of just the mama-to-be. Of course, parenting is about both parents, even if one of them is technically growing the baby. Both parents can be celebrated as they prep for their big arrival, especially with the right couples baby shower themes.
The beauty of a couples baby shower is that it opens the guest list even more. Family and friends that typically may not be interested in a traditional shower may be excited to come to a co-ed event with the right theme. Couples baby showers quickly become a whole family affair, meaning even more love shared and memories made.
If you’re planning a couples shower, there are some fun themes to explore that aren’t too feminine and will easily have all attendees enjoying themselves. Need some inspiration? Read on for 15 fun couples baby shower themes.
1. ‘Baby-Q’ Shower Theme
Fire up the grill and have a BBQ with a baby twist. From burgers to brats, gather your family and friends and have a cookout-themed baby shower.
- Decor: You can keep a backyard barbecue pretty simple, but a red and white gingham picnic blanket over your tables will definitely complete the look. Floral arrangements that include sunflowers will give a backyard barbecue feel.
- Food: Throw hot dogs and burgers on the grill, with sides like watermelon, potato salad, beans, corn, and chips.
- Favors: Make custom koozies for friends and family to keep their drinks cold, package up your very own spice rub that you used for the barbecue, or a personalized bottle of barbecue sauce.
2. ‘Happy Camper’ Baby Shower Theme
Going to camp as a kid can bring back so many enjoyable memories as an adult, so throw a camp-themed baby shower. From family and friends dressing up like they’re going camping to serving camp-themed foods—like s’mores—it’s a great way to celebrate you and your little camper.
- Decor: Make your guests feel like they’re at camp and make a “camp banner” out of baby bibs to stream across the room. Swap out glass vases for tin cans for floral arrangements, and display vintage lanterns throughout the room. Set up a kids’ tent that can be gifted to the mom-to-be.
- Food: Immerse your guests in the camp theme and have a s’mores station with crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and supplies for roasting. We can’t forget about PB&J, sandwiches, and trail mix.
- Activities: Provide “field note” cards for attendees to write down baby advice for the mom or parents-to-be.
- Favors: Have a friendship bracelet station for guests, make DIY badge pins, and have little bags available for guests to fill on their way out.
3. Fiesta Baby Shower Theme
Because fiestas are the perfect way to celebrate a beautiful milestone, throw a fiesta-inspired baby shower to welcome the newest member to the family.
- Decor: When it comes to fiestas, vibrant colors are best. Decorate the space with cacti, papel picado banners, maracas, and sombreros. Have fun with it and hang a piñata, too!
- Food: Serve the best fiesta food with dishes like nachos, tacos, fajitas, guacamole, queso, salsa, and more. Another option is to have a taco bar, and every guest can build their own taco to their liking. For dessert, make churros, flan, or tres leches cake.
- Activity: A fun and entertaining game to play is a form of Lotería or “Mexican Bingo.” Provide bingo cards with pictures of gifts from the baby registry. As the parents-to-be open presents, guests mark off items on their board. When someone achieves the winning pattern, they can yell, “¡Lotería!” indicating that they’ve won.
4. Baby Brunch Shower Theme
If brunch is a favorite meal for the parents-to-be, then what better way to celebrate than by throwing them a brunch-themed baby shower?
- Decor: Dress up the brunch table with a gingham table cloth, vases filled with seasonal flowers, cake stands, and candles.
- Food: Order up a platter of bagels and coffee for a baby-themed couples brunch party. Set up a DIY fruit, yogurt, and granola bar. Plus, it wouldn’t be brunch without plenty of mimosa or Bloody Mary crafting opportunities.
- Favors: At the end of the shower, gifts guests with a recipe card filled out with a favorite brunch dish the parents-to-be love to make.
5. ‘A Little Bean is Brewing’ Baby Shower Theme
An adorable theme for coffee lovers! Get the coffee-lover aesthetic by hosting a baby shower at a local coffee shop.
- Decor: Use coffee carafes or glass pour-over coffee makers as vases for floral arrangements. Fill glass candle holders with coffee beans, and light coffee-scented candles to fill the room with a coffee shop aroma.
- Food: Serve the perfect pairings that go well with coffee. From donuts to scones to croissants, serve them alongside the best coffee any coffee connoisseur would approve of.
- Favors: With a little bean brewing, it’s only fitting to send family and friends home with a bag of coffee beans. Be sure to send the new parents-to-be home with any extras…they’ll need it soon enough!
6. ‘Ice Ice [Cream] Baby’ Shower Theme
If you’re welcoming a summer baby, consider cooling down with an ice cream party.
- Decor: Set up and decorate your very own ice cream bar, and decorate the room with bright colors to give an ice cream parlor feel. Take it a step further by having the local ice cream truck stop by, too.
- Food: Set up a DIY sundae bar for your guests to enjoy. The expecting host and any pregnant guests are sure to enjoy themselves at an ice cream party.
- Favors: Provide pints of ice cream with personalized ice cream labels—a sweet treat to celebrate the sweetest member joining the family.
7. ‘Baby on Board’ Shower Theme
Live near a beach? Bring your party to the sand for a beach baby themed gathering. If you’re not close to a beach, you can still do a surf-themed party in your backyard.
- Decor: A real (or fake) surfboard is something you can display with either a greeting or your baby’s name. Using tropical blues, greens, oranges, and yellows throughout will give you that beachy look. For table decor, use tropical florals, palm trees, or seashells.
- Food: Serve fruit, sandwiches, pasta salad, a summertime cheese board, lemonade, and mimosas for your adult guests.
- Favors: Let your friends and family continue to feel the island vibes with a beach-scented room spray or personalized jars of bath salts.
8. ‘Welcome to the World’ Shower Theme
For travel-loving parents, a travel-themed shower is a perfect choice. Decorate with pictures of the parents from their travels and serve food from their favorite destinations.
- Decor: Decorate with pictures of the parents from their travels. Set up vintage luggage around the area, along with globes for decor.
- Food: Serve food from their favorite destinations.
- Activity: Play travel-themed games, like making a list of unique parenting traditions celebrated around the world and have guests guess where they take place (for example, it is customary for parents in Scandinavian countries to leave their babies in strollers outside to nap).
9. ‘Ready to Pop’ Baby Shower Theme
An adorable theme with play-on-words, the mom-to-be isn’t the only thing that’s ready to pop. Celebrate with a soda pop-themed shower.
- Decor: Round up all the vintage soda bottles you can find and turn them into vases for flower arrangements. Decorate with a vintage diner in mind and set the mood by playing vintage records for music.
- Food: Serve all the classic sodas, of course. And if soda isn’t a guest favorite, offer sparkling water or other fizzy drinks to stay within the theme. For a main dish, serve something like pizza, burgers, or hot dogs.
- Favors: Give away vintage sodas with personalized labels.
10. ‘Starting Our Story’ Shower Theme
Start to fill your baby’s library with a literary-themed baby shower. Have each guest bring their favorite book from their own childhood and ask them to write a welcome note to the baby on the front of the book.
- Decor: Build up the decor with classic children’s books throughout for a fun, library-centric event.
- Food: Include dishes that go along with the theme of children’s books, like a fruit display in the shape of a caterpillar for author Eric Carle’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and bake cookies for Laura Numeroff’s book called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Next to each dish, display the book the dish coincides with.
- Favors: Send friends and family home with a personalized bookmark.
11. Happy Hour Baby Shower Theme
Celebrate the parents-to-be with a happy hour shower for one of the happiest times in their lives. Host it at a cocktail bar, a favorite brewery, or a backyard.
- Decor: Set the mood for happy hour by hanging string lights, set the table with classy linen, and have a cocktail bar ready.
- Food: Serve finger foods including charcuterie boards, pretzels, sliders, and dips. And you can’t have a happy hour without drinks. Have a variety between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages with mocktails and signature cocktails for guests to choose from.
- Favors: Before your guests head out, hand them personalized can coolers, small bottles of delicious cocktail mixers, or personalized matches.
12. Parents-to-‘Bee’ Baby Shower Theme
If you’re looking for a classic theme to honor the parents-to-be, go with this adorable theme that welcomes the littlest and busiest bee to the family.
- Decor: Use shades of yellow, brown, and red or yellow and blue. Label terra cotta pots or mason jars and fill them with yellow floral arrangements.
- Food: Serve sandwiches, an array of the yummiest breads, and a croquembouche as a “beehive.”
- Favors: Nothing is sweeter than sending guests home with jars of honey.
13. Rodeo Baby Shower Theme
Get inspired by dude ranches across the United States, and put your boots on to gather your friends and family for a cowboy-themed shower. Plus, this theme is wonderful for either a little cowboy or cowgirl on the way.
- Decor: With a western theme, placing bouquets of flowers within vintage boots and pots of cacti are some cute ideas to get you started. Add some hints of denim. And if you need more seating, consider using hay bales.
- Food: You really can’t go wrong with what you serve, but “cowboy chili,” “ranch dips,” and barbecue dishes, like brisket and corn, are some things to add to your menu.
- Favors: Give something simple like matchboxes. Depending on availability, some companies throughout the country can provide a “custom hat bar” for events. Everyone can leave with their own customized cowboy hat.
14. Blue Jean Baby Shower Theme
It doesn’t get much more adorable than this theme centered around all-things denim. Plenty of blues will lend this a great theme for welcoming a little boy or girl.
- Decor: Anything denim goes for a blue jean baby shower theme. Make the star of your decor silverware holders made out of jean pockets made from thrift-store denim for an extra special touch.
- Food: Just like blue jeans, serve anything that goes with the ‘blue’ theme, like blueberry-flavored cake, and make desserts topped with blue icing.
- Favors: Fill mason jars with jam or honey and use scraps of denim as the lids. Another idea for this adorable theme is to use denim fabric as goody bags.
15. ‘Special Delivery’ Pizza Baby Shower Theme
Pizza parties are even better when they’re for a baby!
- Decor: The red gingham pattern is perfect for either a boy baby shower or a girl baby shower. Use this style for tablecloths or within your table settings. Turn tomato jars into vases with real basil. Not only will your shower smell good, but you can use the fresh basil for the pizza, too!
- Food: Have pizza, of course. Whether you have guests build their own pizzas to be cooked in a pizza oven or order from your favorite pizza joint, this theme will be a hit!
- Favors: Have your guests leave with your favorite jar of pizza sauce and personalize it with a “thank you” label.
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Patty Schepel, Editorial Assistant
As the editorial assistant, Patty works with The Everymom’s team on pitches, creating original articles, updating existing content, photo sourcing, writing shopping product descriptions, inputting freelance articles, and more. With Patty’s passion for writing, experience as a mother of two, and expertise as a pediatric nurse, she brings a thoughtful and informative perspective to The Everymom. When she’s not working, you can find her spending time with her family, training for half marathons—she ran one 16 weeks pregnant—traveling, cooking, reading a rom-com, and keeping her sourdough starter, Rose, alive.