How to Throw a Wine & Cheese Party (Your Gals Will Love!) for Your Bridal Shower

Imagine a low-key Wine & Cheese Bridal Shower where you are casually sipping a great glass of wine, snacking on delicious bites, chatting with friends while celebrating your pending nuptials. If you’re feeling that, you’re in luck because that’s exactly what we created in partnership with JNSQ Wine!

If you’re not yet familiar with JNSQ yet, JSNQ is a California wine with a French accent. Their wines are crafted in the style of a fine French rosé using the highest quality California grapes. You know were fans of all things design and packaging, so it won’t be a surprise to learn that JSNQ sports some serious style with their ornate glass bottles that are almost too gorgeous to uncork!

Given the styling of the JNSQ brand and our love of wine and cheese, creating a wine and cheese bridal shower that’s both beautiful AND delicious was a no brainer! Not only is a wine and cheese bridal shower super gorgeous, but it actually requires very little cooking + prep! This party idea is perfect for the bride that loves a little bit of luxury and enjoying the good life.

If you’re thinking- “But I don’t know the first thing about which wines to select and how they should really be enjoyed!!”, don’t worry! JNSQ has laid out the perfect selection of beautiful wines with flavor and note descriptions for each one. If you throw this bridal shower, it would be a nice touch to print out these descriptions and read them aloud as each one is savored! Who doesn’t like learning about wine while enjoying a perfect atmosphere to relax, hang-out and chat.

Scroll along with us and see how you can host the perfect wine and cheese bridal shower that your girls will LOVE!

The Wine

We used two wines for this party: JNSQ Rosé Cru and JNSQ Sauvignon Blanc. JNSQ is actually an abbreviation which is inspired by the lovely French saying: “je ne sais quoi” which is used to describe something that is so unique or exceptional that it stands out above everything else. We’ve got to say, the beauty of these wines does just that! Both the Rosé Cru and Sauvignon Blanc are crafted from fine grapes sourced from California’s acclaimed Central Coast and come in the signature JNSQ glass bottle. These perfume bottle-esque designs are so gorgeous that they can double as a pretty keepsake that the bride-to-be can cherish as a reminder of her beautiful bridal shower.

JNSQ Rosé Cru

JNSQ described this wine as one that can be consumed all year long:

Rosé Cru is clean and aromatic with a touch of tropical fruit and hints of white peach. The dynamic flavors are accented with red fruit, savory herbal and white floral notes.

JNSQ Sauvignon Blanc

JNSQ states that their go-to white wine, the Sauvignon Blanc pairs perfectly with many different foods and snacks:

A delightful everyday favorite, this Sauvignon Blanc is bright and crisp with notes of citrus, green apple, and hints of tropical fruit. Pear and melon unfold on the palate, balancing the subtle floral and savory notes. The clean texture and delicate body make for a refreshing Sauvignon Blanc that can be enjoyed even after spring and summer are long gone. The crisp texture offers balance to a selection of cheese and charcuterie.

The Cheese

Selecting cheese varieties doesn’t require a cheesemonger (we just learned that’s the official term for a cheese specialist….and it’s fun to say), you can simply head to Trader Joes or Whole Foods (if you need help from a cheesemonger….see, fun to say) and get 4-5 cheeses. However, if you really want to dial things in, you could also try a local cheese shop to ensure your cheese game is on point.

When I put together my cheeseboards, there are 5 types of cheese I like to include:

Medium to firm cheese. Manchego 6 month is our pick for this category. It’s a great mild cheese that everyone will love. Others that would work here include: Provolone, Cheddar, & Monterey Jack.
An aged cheese. Gouda is our favorite for this category but you could also use Goat, Parmesan or Gruyere.
Soft cheese. Brie works great here. Other faves for this category include Burrata and Fresh Mozzarella.
Creamy sweet cheese. Chevre with honey is a fave. This goes so good with the JNSQ Rosé Cru.
Wild Card! I always like to add something new! This time I picked up a seasonal cheese called Autumn cheese.

The Food

This is the fun part! So many options to include to pair with the wine + cheese. We love including meats, nuts, fruits and olives on the board. These are some of our faves:

Nuts – cashews, marcona almonds, candied pecans
Olives – castelvetrano and kalamata are our two faves. Tip – olives work best on the board in a small bowl.
Fruit – go with what’s in season and you can’t go wrong. For fall, look for apples, figs, pears, blackberries, pomegranates and grapes
Meats – prosciutto, cured salami, & soppressata are great ones to include
Crackers – I like to include a few types here as well: a thin wafer cracker, a nutty cracker (this is great to pair with the Chevre), and then something fun that is seasonal – for this one we added a sweet potato cracker that felt very fall to us – and was really good! We could this cracker paired great with the Pairs great with the JNSQ Sauvignon Blanc

The Decor

For this chic Wine and Cheese Bridal Shower, we wanted the setup to feel super comfortable – but elegant – and a great place for all the ladies to hang out and enjoy wine and fantastic company. Enter our grazing board for the centerpiece….it’s such a great way to create the vibe we’re going for – it makes the table look AMAZING and encourages grazing and socializing to keep everyone happy, engaged and having fun!

Since these wine bottles are probably the prettiest wine bottles I’ve seen, we decided to use them as the centerpieces and style everything around them! Talk about interactive centerpieces….

How to Create the Prettiest Centerpiece for Your Wine & Cheese Bridal Shower

Building Your Board

Initially we thought about finding a nice piece of reclaimed wood, but that can become quite a shopping task that may require additional work to clean and finish the board before placing food on it. So, since we’re trying to make this an easy party, we opted to get a new, clean piece of wood from our local hardware store. This piece was already the perfect size (7″ x 48″), so we just did a bit of light sanding to ensure there were no splinters during our party and then applied a food contact safe Butcher Block Oil to preserve the wood for future use. If you have a longer table, you could easily pair two boards together! Or if you have 2 tables, one for each table.

Designing Your Florals

Staying true to our mission of keeping things simple, we spray painted baby’s breath (which is very on trend, I mean if it’s good enough for Mandy Moore’s wedding, right?!) and also affordable. So we bought a bunch of baby’s breath (we used 6 bunches) and 4 colors of spray paint. For this table, we wanted to keep with a fall sunset color palette, so we bought a pink, dusty purple, orange and merlot red. I LOVE this mix together.

You’ll want to buy and paint the flowers 1-2 days before your party. They’ll keep for a few days after being spray painted – but you will still need to keep them hydrated, so be sure to get them into a vessel with water!

Since we made sure this is an easy DIY, you can just put the display together the morning of the party….this only took me about an hour to do. I’m sure it would go even faster if you had a friend or two helping!

Place your florals before you put any food on the board! As you prepare to place your florals, cut off the stems and put them under the board and just play around with the colors – you really can’t go wrong and it will look so great!!

Once the board and flowers are in place, it’s time for the pièce de résistance – the JNSQ bottles These beauties are way too pretty to keep in the kitchen, right?! We placed 3 bottles on the board: two of the JNSQ Rosé Cru and one of the JNSQ Sauvignon Blanc.

Completing Your Board

Next you’ll want to place your cheeses on the board. Then it’s time for any small bowls, followed by the crackers and fruit. There really isn’t a right or wrong way to put the board together….but the one who builds the board gets to sample while she works! If after your wine, cheese and food is placed you see spots that look a bit bare, you’ve found the perfect place for a pile of nuts. Another tip? Slicing fruit in half (like we did with the pomegranates) and placing them on the board looks pretty and takes up space if you need to fill an empty area. Figs and oranges also work great sliced in half!

I mean how gorgeous is this bottle?!!

Play Some Games at Your Wine & Cheese Bridal Shower!

To keep your crew entertained, we even have a game to suggest that would be fun for you while still enjoying the table. We are all big fans of RomComs and we put together this fun game involving emojis and your favorite romantic comedies! You’ll want to print out enough copies for all your guests, then give a time limit and have fun! The winner is the one who guesses the most movies! (The movie answers are at the bottom of this post!)

Download our Bridal Shower Emoji Game printable here.

We hope this is helpful for those of you planning a bridal shower (or even just a girls night!). Cheers to enjoying some great JNSQ wine and spending some quality time with those closest to you!

photos thanks to Anna Delores Photography

Answer key for the Bridal Shower Emoji Game – 1. Bridesmaids / 2. Sleepless in Seattle / 3. The Wedding Singer / 4. Bride Wars / 5. Four Weddings and a Funeral / 6. Runaway Bride / 7. 500 Days of Summer / 8. Father of the Bride / 9. The Wedding Date / 10. My Best Friend’s Wedding / 11. American wedding / 12. Wedding Crashers / 13. The Wedding Planner / 14. 27 Dresses / 15. I Love You, Man / 16. Meet the Parents / 17. The Princess Bride / 18. The Corpse Bride

* This post is sponsored by JNSQ Wine. All content, ideas, and words are by Green Wedding Shoes. Thanks for supporting our sponsors!