The destination bachelor and bachelorette party thing is ridiculous BUT… people really are getting married older and older and they have moved on and aren’t living right by each other any more in so many cases. What a huge added expense though.
My son’s friends do all live nearby as he grew up here in N. Va. and now is in D.C., so basically still here as are they and all pitched in for a mountain cabin for his get together which was nice. they didn’t expect the best man (my husband) to pay but of course he ponied up for quite a bit of it up front.
I do think a lot of this trend to do more elaborate pre-wedding events is driven in part by a desire to be instagrammable and to “curate” one’s life on social media. #lookatmylife #ilikeattention
I personally don’t Skype but I didn’t think of a skype shower as being a gift grab unless you said it. I guess it would be if you invited people that you wouldn’t have invited if they lived close enough to attend in person but you invite them by Skype since you don’t have to be with them. I assumed that a skype shower would be limited to those people who would be invited if they lived close by. In that instance, it wouldn’t be a gift grab, IMHO.
As for curatable events, S17’s prom is going to be instagrammed this year. My D and her bf have signed up to be the instagrammers so that they can come and see him and his friends, many of whom D has known since S17 was in K. I would never have thought to do such a thing.
Maybe I’m old fashioned…but I think a shower is not on,y a time for folks to give gifts to the bride… it also to be there to visit with the bride, and family and friends.
If we can’t do THAT, we aren’t having a shower.
I have plenty of friends here who I could invite…and a handful of the brides friends, and the grooms family.
But at this point…the key player…the BRIDE…can’t be here. So…no shower.
Totally agree with thumper. If the bride isn’t there to visit with invited friends and family, it defeats the purpose of a shower, and a Skype shower’s message is just send the gifts.
My D lived in NY and a friend in our hometown (where the wedding will be)wanted to throw her a shower but she declined. She didn’t like the idea of flying in just to collect gifts.
My friends and I married back in the early 80s. We were all roughly 30, or a couple years older.
No showers. No bachelorettes, of ANY kind.
It has nothing to do with age or state of employment. It has everything to do with the wedding industrial complex, gift-grabbing, and, as @doschicos says,
I attended a bridal shower two summers ago where the invitation indicated the bride would be “in absentia.” So there was a bridal shower with no bride. The invite also requested gift cards from a couple of places instead of actual gifts.
I was married in the 80s as well and was nearly 30. I had a few showers but no bachelorette party and very few folks flew to my wedding. I have attended several showers over the years but generally I was in the area and didn’t have to fly anywhere. I attended one bachelorette party ever–bride wanted all of us to go with her to Chippendales for an evening. It was rather racy but relatively inexpensive. The bride paid for attendant’s dresses and shoes.
Having a shower without the bride seems wrong on all levels to me and I wouldn’t be interested. I might send a card of regrets.
My DD married two years ago and had a weekend, low cost local bachelorette. I even went to one of the events. Now it’s her maid of honor’s turn and the bachelorette is in Nashville - very popular for these events BTW. It will only be a few girls and they can afford it. Times have changed a lot in 30 years.
Thinking about it, we’ve never had bachelor/ette parties in my extended family, not in my generation nor among those who have married among nieces and nephews. Some showers, often coed, and some engagement parties. We’re not girly girls nor guy’s guys and are events are never gender specific. That would seem odd to us, given our dynamics, but to each their own.
My 25-year-old DD was at a bachelorette party in Nashville this weekend.
When my 27-year-old got married in the fall, her bachelorette party was in the Outer Banks. Her younger sister found a deal on a house and I think there were 12 of them there, all at least 27 except for my 25-year-old. I think only one flew there.
I got married in 1985 and had three showers and my bachelorette party was a bottle of wine with my sister, sisters-in-law and a friend.
FWIW, here’s another take on a shower without the bride. Maybe it was more typical of military families, but I grew up thinking it was common to have proxies for all sort of events such as proxy godparents when you were stationed in some remote location and your relatives and dearest friends were half a world away.
I was finishing college out of state and about to start a new job, so no vacation time available, when one of my mother’s friends hosted a proxy bridal shower for me. Various household items & package embellishments were assembled during the party to make up my “proxy” (picture a string mop wearing a crown of ribbons and bows) and photographed with the guests and their gifts. My mother opened the presents, the ladies all drank cold duck and pink champagne cocktails (it was the '70s), wrote down their hints for a happy marriage and sent their love and best wishes with some photos of the festivities. I knew all of the women. Some were from our neighborhood, others had played golf with my mother for years, and others worked at a school I had attended and were my mother’s friends from church. Over the years my mother had hosted elaborate teas for many of their daughters for either bridal or baby showers, and they were happy to do this more for her than for me.
I got married in the 80s and most people I knew did have bridal showers and bachelorette parties (though not elaborate/expensive destination parties). This was long before social media, so I think it had a lot more to do with geography/local culture.
@Silpat , that sounds very sweet! And meaningful for all concerned. And fun. 
I think that the relationship between all the participants made it special that way.
My DIL recently went to her friend’s bachelorette long weekend in…South America! Talk about getting out of hand!
The flights alone would take up a chunk of that weekend!
My D is going to a bachelorette party next weekend. It is in Newport, RI–which is fairly easy in terms of travel. All the wedding attendants are in New England. The sister of the bride, who is maid of honor, is not an organizer so when another bridesmaid offered to take it over, sis said fine. What started out, based on first communications from the organizer, as a $300-400 weekend (lodging and food) is now $1,000. My D is in grad school, but everyone else is working and all have well paying positions. I think it is bad form to low ball costs and then tell everyone a week before that the cost has more than doubled. There is nothing D can do about it now. It seems that expectations around weddings have changed and many middle class/upper middle class folks are now spending more and more on wedding festivities.
Ouch, @Bromfield2! And if anyone drops off because of costs, prices go up for the remainder. I think the organizer had good intentions but maybe isn’t aware of costs. I have a friend who “lies” to herself about the price of traveling. Everything is such a bargain. But what actually happens is they never add things up and choose to be unaware of the costs. They put their blinkers on and slide through life, blissfully unaware of the costs of things.
My D gets caught up in these things. Where the cost is quoted as one thing but ends up costing much more. And if she drops out, the cost goes up for the other participants.
If only I could glide through life like this.
It’s hard in this Pinterest, social media driven society. It’s like the wedding has to compare to what you see and be a Instagram worthy celebration.
That is pricey, @Bromfield2! I know Newport can be expensive but it is still early for high season so I’m having a hard time figuring out how they are getting to a $1,000 price tag per person without going very first class for room and board.
In the small world that is CC, my DD was invited to this same party weekend and was quite relieved, financially, that all the single ladies attended and the married-mom friends stayed home. I agree it’s over the top.
I have another DD who loves weddings, loves festivities and she has flown all over the place to attend destination weddings and events, she really resented the party in Vegas with “bottle service” that turned out to be way way more than she budgeted or was told to expect.
I can see the idea sounding fun, but the costs and the time off from work are a hard balance for many just starting out in their careers & a waste for people who don’t value that sort of thing