Somebody in every bridal party ends up holding the clipboard, and while the bride is told to relax, it's usually the maid of honour who spends the fortnight before the hens chasing deposits, counting chairs and wondering how the bride's grandmother will cope with a bar and a DJ.
If you're collecting hens party ideas that work for the whole group, from the flatmate who wants competition to the aunt who mostly wants a proper pot of tea, a daytime patisserie gives you somewhere warm to sit, something to do with your hands and a table someone else clears afterwards. We're inside The Welder on Welles Street in Christchurch Central, and these are the bridal shower ideas we've seen work best. One note first: we're not a licensed venue, so the bubbles will come from a soda or a thickshake, and a daytime shower suits that anyway.
A decorating challenge for the competitive ones
The Cake Decorating Challenge is the one that gets loud. Every guest gets their own fresh 15cm cake and an artist's palette of buttercream and garnishes, then has up to 90 minutes to build the best creation at the table, and somebody's cousin always has the steadiest piping hand. The buttercream goes on cool and soft, holding a ridge from the spatula, while the chocolate pieces press in with a crisp snap, and once the table has crowned its winner (the bride, if your group has any sense of occasion) the knives come out and the room goes quiet for a minute.
The challenge is $65 per person for 4 to 12 guests, Tuesday to Friday between 11am and 4pm, so it suits a bridal party who've taken the Friday off before a Saturday wedding. We handle setup and clean-up, and you can add warm Brazilian cheese bread and a tea or coffee per guest. Cakes made with no added gluten can be selected too, although our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas, so traces may occur and we can't guarantee anything is safe for severe coeliac disease. Our group formats guide compares options.
High tea when three generations are coming
When the guest list runs from the bride's school friends to her nana, the Christchurch high tea is the gentler choice and a favourite for bridal parties. The Full High Tea Experience is $65 per person over a relaxed 90 minutes, with bottomless organic tea from Zealong, New Zealand's only tea plantation. The Brazilian cheese bread arrives first, crisp outside and chewy within from the tapioca flour, and the table goes silent long enough for somebody to start the speeches before desserts made only for the high tea follow.
High tea runs Tuesday to Saturday, so it suits a Saturday shower. Bookings need at least 48 hours' notice and a week is safer for weekends, and you can book up to ten online, while larger parties go through our contact page for a quote. Vegetarian and no-added-gluten versions are selectable, and our Christchurch high tea page walks through the menu.
An evening with the room to yourselves
For a bridal party who care more about food than games, a private group dessert evening gives your group the patisserie to itself, with rotating plated desserts and Dhi explaining how each is built. He has more than 18 years in patisserie behind him, from Rio de Janeiro to Welles Street, and will happily talk caramel temperatures all night. Ask through the form on our group experiences page, or try a public Patisserie After Dark night first, the next being Friday 30 October from 6pm to 9pm.
Hosting the shower at home
At home, petit fours do a caterer's job. Trays from our Mini Cakes & Petit Fours range are $60, with a minimum of 20 pieces, allowing three to five per guest. The Emerald layers orange and pistachio cake with pistachio ganache and dulce de leche, condensed milk cooked slowly to caramel, while The Pear is a frangipane tart with spiced poached pear that gives softly under the teeth. All ten petit fours are made with no added gluten, with the same shared-kitchen caveat, and our No Added Gluten Cakes & Desserts collection has more. Mini cakes start at $9 a serving in trays of 6 or 12, and the Sunrise, berry jam through vanilla sponge, is the easy crowd-pleaser.
For a centrepiece, the Snow White Chocolate Cake layers vanilla sponge and white chocolate ganache under hand-made white chocolate petals, and the 15cm size serves 12 to 15 from $95. Each of our layer cakes comes in its existing design, so you know price and finish upfront, the same low-stress approach we take to wedding cakes.
Getting a date in the diary
Experience bookings can change up to 48 hours out, most cakes need two days' notice and petit fours need seven, and the checkout date picker only offers days the kitchen can meet for what's in your cart. We're pickup only, so everything is collected from The Welder, and a cake collected the day before keeps overnight in the fridge in our packaging with no change to taste or texture. We're open 10am to 9pm Tuesday to Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday. Our FAQ covers storage and allergens, and a gift card towards a high tea for two makes a tidy thank-you for the bride once the honeymoon is over.
