Possibly stupid question

[Octavia]

A wedding shower is being planned for FI and me (rather than just a bridal shower). My mother thinks that the bridal shower is traditionally for all the women invited to the wedding, thus the guest list for a couple''s shower should be...the entire guest list. She''s afraid of mortally offending people if they''re not invited. I always thought a bridal shower was traditionally for a small group of women who are close to the bride, and thus a couple''s shower would be for those family and friends who are closest to the couple. My bridesmaid who is throwing the shower agrees with me...but am I wrong here? I don''t see the point of inviting the entire guest list for a shower, because if that''s the case we might as well turn it into the wedding and save ourselves a few thousand dollars. I certainly haven''t been invited to the bridal shower for every wedding I''ve ever gone to!

 

[jcarlylew]

i am with you and your friend. Usually showers (regardless of the type) are close friends and family members...
and any one else my mother will invite...

when i threw my friends baby shower, i invited close family and friends, and asked that the new grandparents invite only a few minimum close friends of themselves.

 

[havernell]

My understanding of who is invited to the shower is the same as yours- close family/friends, NOT every female invited to the wedding. Has your Mom thought this through- has she herself really been invited to a shower for *every single* wedding she''s attended over the years?

Hopefully Haven will chime in with the official "Miss Manners" verdict on this subject that you could pass along to your Mom to quell her fears.

 

[Octavia]

Date: 7/9/2009 10:50:23 PM
Author: havernell
Has your Mom thought this through- has she herself really been invited to a shower for *every single* wedding she''s attended over the years?

Havernell, she actually said to me, "I''ve never been invited to a wedding and not been invited to the shower." I think she''s incorrect (I can remember at least one exception) but she''s all worked up about everything wedding-related and she''s terrified of doing something wrong. It''s hard on me because she''s really trying to be a good mother of the bride, but she''s actually the most stressful part of wedding planning.

Anyway, I got my way but I just wanted to verify that I''m not crazy!

 

[Dannielle]

I agree with you, I think that a wedding shower should only be a close number of family and friends, not the entire wedding guestlist.

How many people are on your guestlist? If your numbers are high it would become quite an expensive event to host..

 

[iheartscience]

Date: 7/10/2009 12:47:56 AM
Author: Dannielle
I agree with you, I think that a wedding shower should only be a close number of family and friends, not the entire wedding guestlist.

How many people are on your guestlist? If your numbers are high it would become quite an expensive event to host..

Ditto! Inviting the entire guest list is insane. For our shower we invited only the local people who I was close with. (I felt like sending invites to out of town guests, even if I was close to them, made it seem like I was trying to get presents!) My mom invited her friends to the shower, too, but I didn''t really care about that. I think we had about 25 guests? It was a good number...any more than that would have been too many, I think!

 

[Blair138]

I concur with everyone else, showers are typically very close friends and families. For a ''couple'' shower, you would invite all the women who would come to your shower plus their other-half.

FI and I went to one back in the day and it was all of the couple''s close friends and their boyfriends or girlfriends/spouses. It was a good time, lots of beer, food and they opened presents and we got to meet a lot of people before the wedding.

 

[NakedFinger]

Grrrr I just typed a whole post and PS ate it! Dont you hate when that happens?

Anyways....

Both Sunnyd and her mom are actually correct in this matter. Proper etiquette used to indicate that every single woman invited to the wedding was to be invited to the shower, close or not close. Which actually still does happen for weddings that are 100-150 people (weddings that size generally are just close family/friends anyway). However if you have a wedding of 350, its pretty insane to have a shower with 175 people. It has now become acceptable to invite only close friends and family instead.

The shower guest list can be handled one of two possible ways. You may choose to invite all women who you will be inviting to the wedding. Alternatively, if you prefer, and if this is something the bride herself would be more comfortable with, you may choose to have a smaller, more intimate shower where only close family and friends are invited.

Either option is perfectly acceptable and both conform to the rules of etiquette. Apart from that, the option you choose becomes a matter of personal preference.

The one thing you should absolutely never do, under any circumstances, is to invite people to the shower who will not be invited to the wedding. All shower guests must be on the wedding guest list as well.

 

[zipzapgirl]

I don''t think that every single person has to be invited to the shower. Sometimes people have various showers thrown by family, co-workers, girlfriends, etc. and they are definitely smaller. You can do themes and make it more fun.

To be honest, I would definitely go for 25 people or less. If you have more than that, you will spend the entire party opening presents instead of chatting, playing games and hanging out with everyone. As a guest, it''s pretty annoying to stand around and watch someone open gifts for 2+ hours "oh, how nice, another set of kitchen utensils!" Blech.

You could make your Mom happier if you did two events. Have an evening Couples Shower for your friends and then have the traditional Bridal Shower for the aunts and female family members of both sides to meet.

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

Date: 7/10/2009 10:27:46 AM
Author: zipzapgirl
I don''t think that every single person has to be invited to the shower. Sometimes people have various showers thrown by family, co-workers, girlfriends, etc. and they are definitely smaller. You can do themes and make it more fun.

To be honest, I would definitely go for 25 people or less. If you have more than that, you will spend the entire party opening presents instead of chatting, playing games and hanging out with everyone. As a guest, it''s pretty annoying to stand around and watch someone open gifts for 2+ hours ''oh, how nice, another set of kitchen utensils!'' Blech.

You could make your Mom happier if you did two events. Have an evening Couples Shower for your friends and then have the traditional Bridal Shower for the aunts and female family members of both sides to meet.

Octavia - I''m kind of in the same boat. I like the idea of what I highlighted above from zipzagirl. Only thing different about mine is that there are male members of my family I''d like to invite also, but my mom says that you don''t invite the same people to 2 different showers.

I certainly don''t think thought that the entire guest list should be invited though. I''m glad you got your way. Most showers are for people close to the bride/groom, not aquaintances and lots of extended people. (Haha even though my mom thinks distant family should ALWAYS be invited, even great-aunts I''ve never MET.

We''ll be talking that one out!) My FI feels the same way as you put it above - haha if you''re inviting the whole guest list, he says you might as well not even have a shower, and treat the wedding as the one big party!

 

[Haven]

I don''t recall reading anything in the etiquette books about an obligation to invite every single woman on the guest list to the showers. That doesn''t mean it isn''t there, though.

That being said, I''m going to say that your friend doesn''t have to invite every woman on the guest list for one very big reason: it is your friend who is throwing the shower, she is the host, and therefore she determines the size of the guest list. Period.

We had two showers: One thrown by my mother''s dearest friends, and one thrown by my husband''s mother''s very dearest friends. They invited only our closest friends and family members. I come from a pretty traditional family, and nobody batted an eye that not every woman on our wedding guest list had been invited to the showers.

And seriously--if I''m not very close with a couple and I''m invited to the shower I tend to be not so excited about the invite. Actually, I just send a gift and decline the invitation. Who *wants* to go to a shower for your SO''s third cousin''s fiance whom you''ve never met? I mean, really?

A bit off topic, but couples showers are so much fun! We''ve only been to two of them (and my family was not having any of that for our own wedding) but they were both a blast!

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

Date: 7/10/2009 1:25:56 PM
Author: Haven
I don''t recall reading anything in the etiquette books about an obligation to invite every single woman on the guest list to the showers. That doesn''t mean it isn''t there, though.

That being said, I''m going to say that your friend doesn''t have to invite every woman on the guest list for one very big reason: it is your friend who is throwing the shower, she is the host, and therefore she determines the size of the guest list. Period.

We had two showers: One thrown by my mother''s dearest friends, and one thrown by my husband''s mother''s very dearest friends. They invited only our closest friends and family members. I come from a pretty traditional family, and nobody batted an eye that not every woman on our wedding guest list had been invited to the showers.

And seriously--if I''m not very close with a couple and I''m invited to the shower I tend to be not so excited about the invite. Actually, I just send a gift and decline the invitation. Who *wants* to go to a shower for your SO''s third cousin''s fiance whom you''ve never met? I mean, really?

A bit off topic, but couples showers are so much fun! We''ve only been to two of them (and my family was not having any of that for our own wedding) but they were both a blast!

Haven - were any of the same people invited to both those showers? Just wondering if that''s something typically ok to do or not.

 

[Haven]

The only people invited to both showers were my bridesmaids, my parents, and DH''s father.

We did not want to invite anyone else to both showers because it just didn''t feel like a nice thing to do. DH''s mom''s friends did try to bully me into inviting some of my friends to both showers, though, because they needed a larger guest list in order to secure a private room at the venue. I held my ground, I didn''t want to put anyone out by inviting them to two showers.

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

Date: 7/10/2009 1:56:57 PM
Author: Haven
The only people invited to both showers were my bridesmaids, my parents, and DH''s father.

We did not want to invite anyone else to both showers because it just didn''t feel like a nice thing to do. DH''s mom''s friends did try to bully me into inviting some of my friends to both showers, though, because they needed a larger guest list in order to secure a private room at the venue. I held my ground, I didn''t want to put anyone out by inviting them to two showers.

Thanks for the reply - that''s exactly what I figured. I certainly don''t have any intentions of fishing for gifts, and I wouldn''t want it to come across that way either.

/threadjack Octavia - sorry!

 

[Haven]

Sorry to continue the threadjack . . .

luvthem--I wouldn''t have a problem with inviting someone to two showers if you make it clear to them that you really don''t expect multiple gifts. If you''re doing two very different showers, or you just want someone to be there for two of them, you could always say "I would really love to have you there for it all, but please know that we don''t expect you to bring gifts to all of these events. We just want you there!"

For my own showers we told my bridesmaids that we don''t expect any gifts from them at all since they were standing up in the wedding. They gave us gifts at the first shower, so we re-boxed them and re-opened them at my second shower. I told them we were going to do that because I really didn''t want them to feel obligated to bring another gift.

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

Thanks for the input, Haven! I appreciate it. I think that''s a great idea. I''ll have to remember that verbage...

I''m a long way from showers, but I do know that my mom likes the idea of the female (extended) family shower, while I like the (closer) co-ed shower idea so FI can be there and enjoy it too, since I think he''s just as much a part of all of this as I am. I''m mostly close to family though, with not that many friends outside the family. So there''s really no reason to have 2 showers, because I honestly don''t think there''d be that many people to invite to separate ones. There''s also no way to combine both ideas. But if we only did the female one, I feel like I''d be missing out on the opportunity to celebrate with some of the male members of my family I''m close to - and honestly, some of them I''d rather invite before some of the females.

 

[ms.halo]

Sometimes it also depends on who's throwing the shower. One of my showers was thrown by my MIL's friends/sister so they invited many of their friends in addition to the list of my family and friends that I sent them. They were all invited to the wedding, but I wouldn't have invited them to the shower. But when other people are paying for it...*shrug*

In your case I feel like some sort of compromise could be reached. If EVERYONE you're inviting to the wedding is invited to the shower it's more like an engagement party than a shower.

 

[tlh]

IMHO, You''re right. Unless the wedding is really small (like 20 people and less) then your mom is right too!

 

[Octavia]

Thanks for chiming in, everyone! We''re inviting about 140 people to the wedding; the shower list is about 40. It''s going to be a little weird because, aside from my bridesmaids, it''s going to be mostly family and my parents'' friends. I wouldn''t have chosen to have the shower in my hometown, since none of my or FI''s friends live within 4-5 hours of there and I doubt anyone is going to travel there for a couple hours. Also, none of FI''s family will be there because they all live abroad (with the exception of a distant, pregnant cousin who is a few states away). So it''s more of a party than a shower anyway. Honestly, I didn''t want a shower at all, but it''s very nice of people to plan it so we''ll be gracious about it...but I wish my mom would stop stressing me out!

 

[pjean]

HI, date twin! I hear you about the stressful relatives. I hope the rest of your planning is going smoothly!