Listen. I understand that traditionally, the maid of honor hosts the bridal shower. But all of my brigadiers are broke. They are wrestling with student loans, cuts in pay at work, working extra jobs, car troubles, going back to school. They got 99 problems and a bridal shower sure as fuck ain’t one.
So I’m putting this party on. A joint effort between me and my mom. Makes good clean sense, right?
But then today I wandered onto some site named “A to Z of Manners and Etiquette” which, I know, already sounds like a real winner. And right there, under the section about who should host the shower, it said (emphasis theirs):
A bridal shower rule that has not changed is that the bride never hosts her own bridal shower.
OH DAYYYYYAMN SON, I AM BREAKING RANK!!! Imagine how pissed my shower guests will be when they find out that my maid of honor did not have to resort to streetwalking in order to scrape together enough cash to pay for the party on my behalf! They will probably hurl their wine glasses to the ground and stalk off in a huff. Stupid bride-hosted wine-tasting trip.
But then I got back to the serious business of cruising the internets — the big, crazy, wacky world of internets — trying to see what I could learn about bridal showers. And inevitably, I ended up on The Knot.
As usual, The Knot is a great place to go of you want to make things 800 times more complicated than they actually are. I mean, take a look at this bridal shower planning checklist — intended, of course, for the bride’s maid of honor. Notice that there is no booze in the martini glass in the accompanying photo. What do you suppose happened to that booze, hmm? That’s right, the poor maid of honor guzzled it down the second she read that the bridal shower is supposed to be her “pre-wedding piece-de-resistance.” And that’s barely one sentence into the proceedings.
But you know what really threw me for a loop in this checklist? The last bullet point under “2 months ahead,” which is “Make a detailed to-do list and assign tasks.” Um. I already thought that this checklist was the list of things to do. No? Are they telling me I am supposed to start making lists of lists? Inside of other lists? That’s nice. And now the world is folding over into itself and my head is starting to hurt and oh hey look, a bottle of wine.
Ahhh.
It’s all right. It’s OK. I don’t need what the internets have to offer me anyway. Because I’ve got skills of my own. I’ll make a list that does not involve ordering linens or renting coffee urns. I’ll put together a party that does not involve streetwalking for funds. I am going to take this traditional shower concept and turn it into an excuse to get some of my favorite people — people I rarely get to see — together for a relaxing afternoon in the sun, enjoying food and tasting wine. Simple pleasures.
That can’t be too hard, can it?
I think you should be fine, Lyn. Your shower sounds FUN! As opposed to being forced to play lame ass games in someone’s stuffy living room while eating pastel colored candy (at least you THINK it’s candy). Or is that just baby showers? They all blend togeths in my mind. I wouldn’t worry about offending too many people…but if you want to be safe, couldn’t you enlist your bridesmaids to help book the stuff and brainstorm and organize people? They can address the invitations…who has to know you were the one who bought them? It can be a group effort!
I have a quandary, though. And if it feels like I’m hijacking this post I am sorry but you and your readers might be the only group of women around I can trust to steer me in the right direction (Lyn: you should take readers’ questions and answer them as a little blog item sometimes!!):
My future M-I-L wants to throw me a shower…and it will likely include a lot of her old lady friends and few of my friends. It seems more like it’s a way to show me off to them. Which doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that none of them would be invited to the wedding.
Dave and I are paying for this shindig our own and are planning to tell our moms they can each invite maybe two or three friends (plus spouses). These are people who we don’t give a crap about and don’t actually know, but who are important to them and who they care about and would like to share this event with. Given that we capped our guest list at 80 people, and cut people who we don’t see often but would actually like there, we think this is nice of us and fulfills whatever duty we have.
What can I do? If someone wants to throw me a party, I can’t really tell them no w/o sounding ungrateful and controlling…but it makes me uncomfortable to 1) get gifts from strangers who aren’t coming to the wedding 2) have to share part of my wedding experience with strangers because my FMIL is old school and views this occasion as a way to play the Social Invite Payback game.
Don’t get me wrong – I like my FMIL. She is very nice to me and I try to do nice things for her. And I do appreciate the fact she likes me enough to throw a shower… But I’m 24 and not wearing a white dress or taking his name, if you get my drift, and she’s 71, old school Boston Irish Catholic and married Dave’s dad w/in 2 months of meeting him. I have a tough time navigating the waters w/ her b/c she is more like a grandmother to me and we have totally different opinions on everything.
Am I a bitch? Do I have any say? Please give me some sane words of advice before I run away (which I am on the verge of every time this type of shit comes up). I want to keep the peace, have her feel like she is playing an important role in the wedding…and not have these poor victims, I mean friends of hers, feel obligated to attend a shower and shell out money for a gift for someone they never met for a wedding to which they are not invited.
Hoo boy, that’s a tough one. And I know I just wrote about bucking etiquette, but etiquette deems that those who are invited to the bridal shower must also be invited to the wedding (not that you “invited” them in this case, but whatever).
Here’s a suggestion: how about telling your FMIL that you appreciate her kind offer of throwing you a shower, but that you’re a simple person and don’t want to make a big fuss. Tell her that you’d love to meet her friends, though, so how about turning the shower into a quiet brunch or a tea instead? The idea is to get her away from the “shower” concept so that her friends don’t feel obligated to bring gifts, and so you don’t feel guilty/obligated to invite them to the wedding in turn.
If she pushes back, maybe you can actually tell her that according to etiquette, those who attend the shower must be invited to the wedding, but that you and Dave regrettably cannot add any more to the guest list. You don’t want to get to this point, but if you can’t avoid it, I’m hoping that trotting out the old etiquette rules might resonate with a person from her generation.
An alternative route, if your family/friends are also throwing you a shower, would be to tell your FMIL that somebody else is already going through all the stress and headache of planning a shower for you, but that you’d love to meet her friends the next time they all plan on going out for, say, breakfast.
Any potential ruffled feathers should be soothed by your (seeming, if not sincere) enthusiasm for meeting her friends. That way she’s flattered that you are interested in her life.
Good luck, man. Let me know how it goes. And if anybody else out there has any ideas for how to handle this, pile on the help! We all need it.
girl, have i told you today that i love you? (cue music…”have i tooooooooooooooooooooooooold you lately that i looooooooooooooooooooooooooove you?”)
and let’s keep in mind that as the Keeper of the Invitations, I will be addressing them and sending them out, and I can wrangle the RSVPs, too. so maybe we can give any potential sticklers the illusion that you’re not hosting your own shindig in Flagrant Disregard of All Socially Established and Accepted Rules.
Although, barring that, International Boulevard is but 4 short blocks from my apartment. I bet the ladies there wouldn’t mind staking me a corner.
I love it, and I think it’s a great idea. My 2 maids of honor are my sisters…Alli is in her last semester of student teaching and she’s pulling 60 hour weeks, and Mary is 17 and a varsity athlete. There’s no way I’d expect them to do a shower, we’re going to have a super casual barbeque instead. I’d put money on the fact that your shower will have more personality and heart in it than one planned exclusively by that Knot list. And I think the Knot can suck it.
I feel you, because my MOH is a brokeass who can barely afford groceries, let alone to host a party.
Do whatever you want. There are no rules.
The only reason we’re not supposed to host our own showers (or have immediate family host it) is so it doesn’t appear to be a gift grab. There’s a reason behind most etiquette, but it gets lost in the lists of rules. And the real reason for a shower is getting to spend time with women who matter in your life. So host your own. Drink that wine. I’m sure it will be a blast and your loved ones will appreciate it all the more.
OHHHHHH. Well now that makes sense. See, I was thinking of “hosting” in the sense of “the one who doles out the money.” But now I understand how a bride throwing her own party would send the wrong message. “Bring me gifts!!!”
And to think I’ve been railing against nothing all this time.