<p>The daughter of a friend of mine just got married. Her sister helped out with all the logistical details. She was supposed to add to the invitations that the bride was registered at <i>Crate & Barrel</i>. Unfortunately, she got that a little confused and wrote that the bride was registered at <i>Cracker Barrel</i>. </p>
<p>I mean, how many rocking chairs and wooden peg games can on young couple use?!</p>
<p>^^Love it! And good for the sister - maybe she understood that you never put registry information on or with an invitation?</p>
<p>That’s funny!<br>
And I’m with you, Chedva! Registry information with an invitation? No thanks!</p>
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<p>Really? I’ve been to two wedding showers in the past few weeks and they were both sherbet-punch-and-grocery-store-cake affairs at a relative’s home where everyone had a lovely time meeting the brides’ aunts and mothers and grandmothers. The brides opened presents, ribbons were collected and arranged on a styrofoam plate for the rehearsal bouquet (is this a Southern thing?), we played cute wedding shower games, talked about wedding disasters we’d borne witness to, and everyone went home after a couple of hours. My own wedding shower was held in my sister-in-law’s garage. =)</p>
<p>Haven’t been to one of those super-lavish ones…</p>
<p>My D had a “normal” shower last year. Her maid of honor and bridesmaids arranged it. It was held at my home and there were 17 people, in total. We had hors d’heuvres and champagne punch, opened gifts, chatted, had French pastries and coffee and had a wonderful afternoon. I think this type is pretty much the norm for most showers I’ve attended. My D had a no games policy. :)</p>
<p>A few years ago, the daughter of a close friend married into a family that has Eastern European origins. The traditions are very different. The bride’s shower was held at a restaurant with more than 150 people in attendance. A several course meal was served and many of the gifts from the groom’s family were more than most people would give for a wedding gift. I wouldn’t really consider this a lavish event, although the meal was very nice. It had more of a feel of tradition to it. His family is very large and, of course, everyone must be invited to the wedding, which resulted in more than 400 guests. His parents, naturally, paid for their share of the guestlist. Different strokes for different folks! One custom that I found really interesting, and that I’d never seen before, was that many on the groom’s side came to the ceremony at the church VERY casually dressed but then went home and changed into their fancy clothes for the reception.</p>
<p>I once threw a bridal shower at a paint-your-own-pottery place. Many of the people didn’t know one another (no one knew the groom’s mother and sisters, for example, and the bride’s attendants were from out of town). It was a really great way to break the ice and get people who didn’t know one another talking. Everyone got to make / take their own piece (I picked the finished pieces up and delivered them to the attendees) but everyone also signed a plate for the bride / groom. It was loads of fun and a lot better than making wedding veils out of toilet paper!</p>
<p>Aibarr, what you’re describing sounds like ones I’ve attended … Some are held at someone’s house, others at a restaurant or other venue … Some serve just refreshments and cake, others serve a luncheon / full meal … Just personal preference / tastes and budget.</p>
<p>Re: posts 112 and 117.</p>
<p>It looks like I was incorrect. It was Letitia Baldridge, an etiquette expert, who suggested a “white lie” which implies that a gift bought at a second hand or antique store was more valuable than it actually is. This link was posted in another thread discussing wedding gifts:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/weddings/15field.html?_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/weddings/15field.html?_r=1</a></p>
<p>Ellebud, that is awful, I haven’t read the whole thread, so I just picked up on all the events and destinations. Then 3boysnjmom has the very opposite problem.
I can understand having a large bridal shower. When I married almost 30 years ago, our wedding was a little unusual in the circles we both lived in. DH’s family lived about 100 miles from me, and were very active in a large church AND he was the first sibling to marry. We had a 60 person bridal shower given by ladies in the church, but other than the size of the guest list and the fact they were checking me out, this event was very much like other bridal showers of the time. Where I grew up and in the strata of “society”, it was customary for the bridal shower to be given by aunts of the couple or “ladies of the church”, not by the bridesmaids.</p>
<p>3boysmom’s child and fiance need to realize there is a certain amount of honoring the family, maybe honoring the parents through them, by giving gifts. The gifts should be appreciated and welcomed, but not expected, and the best presents can be presence. The wedding couple should then be sensitive to the finances of everyone.</p>
<p>My friend’s D is getting married this summer. She is registered at Macy’s and Target.
The bride is from a very poor family that lives in a rural area where the only store is WalMart. (Their neighbors’ daughters, who got married in the last couple years, did register at WalMart, among other places, which was practical, I thought). Most of the parents’ neighbors and friends are quite poor. The bride and groom are both grad students and have nothing but debt, and their friends are also poor students. Why would they ask for expensive china? Perhaps some rich relatives on the groom’s side–if there are any?–might buy a place setting or two, but by the time, if ever, this couple could complete the set, they’ll be middle-aged and won’t be able to find matching pieces. Just dumb, IMO. My s-i-l did the same thing 20 years ago, and got about 3 place settings–what was she expecting?</p>
<p>I am not commenting on the poor kids buying expensive stuff except to say that Ebay is a great place to find/complete/and find bargains in one’s china and crystal pattern. Edish was really a terrific place to find random pieces of one’s china/crystal and yes, sometimes sterling patterns. Also auction houses that specialize in estates often have nearly complete sets of china (or complete) for pennies on the dollar. (And they often have sets of sterling at the same discount percentage). </p>
<p>When I got married it was the thing to do to register for “everyday china”, “good china” and sterling. My parents weren’t rich (we were firmly reaching for middle class), my husband to be family was quite well off. (As I mentioned before my crystal was $2 per stem and I love and use it to this day.) I received everything that I registered for, much to my surprise. I now have 10 sets of china…use them all…and fill in on Ebay.</p>
<p>Ebay is, incidently, or can be a good place to go to find registry items. Perhaps they won’t be in the “original” box but condition can be perfect. (No, I don’t sell anything on ebay, but I have filled in my sets there).</p>
<p>atomom: believe me, it’s not hard to complete a set of anything. My family silver was discontinued in the 1930s and I can find it easily. [Replacements</a>, Ltd.](<a href=“http://www.replacements.com/]Replacements”>http://www.replacements.com/) has everything.</p>
<p>Re: Ebay. My mother in law is quite comfortable. She was going to a wedding of a niece. She gave a Steuben piece, perfect with dust jacket for 125. It was from Ebay. (I was in charge of wrapping it so I know.) The bride didn’t care…it was gorgeous.</p>
<p>Oh, and in my day showers were small, salads, cake, punch and some candy.</p>
<p>Crate & Barrel and Cracker Barrel…funny !</p>
<p>ellebud: 10 sets of china and use them all…wow, can I come to one of your dinner parties?</p>
<p>Agree about Replacements although sometimes difficult to search if the exact pattern isn’t known and there’s no photo available. I finally found my grandmother’s pre-WWII Rosenthal pattern there, but it took some persistance. It’s beautiful and safely stored in what I hope is an earthquake-resistant place. I regret that I only use it once a year or so.</p>
<p>Went to a bridal shower of a college friend’s D last year. Held at the groom’s parents’ house. They are quite wealthy and fond of showing it off. Must have been 75+ people there, with a food spread befitting some weddings. Was startled for a moment when I saw at least 40 gifts with the same boxing/wrapping and then realized that many had ordered from the same registry store. A couple of the bridesmaids made two dopey hats from the wrapping/ribbons and both the bride and groom wore them for pictures. Bride had no interest in any of this but went along with it to please the future “show off” MIL. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I had no bridal shower before my wedding-I refused it since my personal belief is it is nothing more than another request for gifts. Enough.</p>
<p>Boy, some of you are real party-poopers! I have never felt that the main reason for any shower I’ve attended is “another request for gifts”. I prefer to look at it as a part of the celebration of someone I care about. I’ve never begrudged giving a shower gift. An afternoon with friends, family, and a future bride sure seems to me to be a fun outing. It’s too bad that some people don’t feel that way. I sure hope that when my other 4 Ds have showers, that if any of the invited guests are of that opinion that they politely decline the invitation. :)</p>
<p>It has been a long time since I have been able to attend a bridal shower. I always send a gift, as they are usually out of my area and held during a time when I do not have the flexibility to attend.
I have never been to a really extravagent shower , even if the families were wealthy.
My mother commented on several showers that were held back in the 80’s ( when I got married the first time as did many of my friends ) that they had changed so much over the years…going from pot holders and simple kitchen items to really high end items. I think that is very reflective on how our society has changed…many brides having lived on their own or with their fiance and no longer leaving their parent’s homes to start up and stock a home.
A lot of young women have no idea what they will really find useful. When I think back to receiving a cookbook 24 yrs ago that had so many ingredients that I was unfamiliar with THEN, but use often now…</p>
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<p>See, that’s what I was expecting… three stems of crystal from our registry, and I figured that everyone else would presume it was impractical to have a full set of crystal and would go for something else. Then, my incredible coworkers threw us a wedding shower (company tradition) and, despite my strenuous requests for just cake and introductions to my betrothed since I’d only been working there two months when we got married, they stealthily tracked down our registries and cleaned half of them out. I was completely flabbergasted. Most of our wedding guests ended up buying a stem or two of our crystal (we’d inherited my grandmother’s silver and china so we didn’t need any more formal place settings), and we ended up being only a few stems away from a full set of fifty-three pieces of crystal when all was said and done. We both ended up with that feeling you get when you sit down and eat and entire box of Girl Scout cookies. Slightly sick and kind of wasteful… We took up a collection for a medical charity at our wedding and rounded it off to a very respectable number with a good chunk of our gift money, so were able to at least look at ourselves in the mirror after the wedding.</p>
<p>The moral of this story is don’t ask for the hippo if you don’t have a spacious backyard.</p>
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<p>One of my bridal showers was up in my husband’s hometown because not many of his family were willing to go to the wedding, and they wanted to meet me. I was able to convince the plethora of aunts and girlfriends’ mothers who asked to throw a shower for me to get in cahoots with one another and assemble an informal Sunday brunch for the morning after the wedding so we could visit with our out-of-town guests who’d traveled so far to see us-- it ended up being a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom: I totally agree with you. For the most part. When invited to a shower for a close friend or relative I’m very excited to do so. Wedding or Baby shower. One of my sisters even flew from CA for a shower here in MI. She wanted to attend that badly. Spending an afternoon with people I’m close to and giving them a gift makes me happy.</p>
<p>But one Bride I know had a shower that was larger than some weddings I’ve been to. It was held in a hall and there must have been more than 150 people there. I barely knew the girl. Happened to work in the same office with her for a couple of months. So a few of the girls in the office and I attended, and chipped in for a very reasonable gift. Apparently it was not enough because we weren’t invited to the wedding. Which was fine with us.</p>
<p>As cangel and alwaysamom have mentioned, I’ve discussed with my son why a slightly larger wedding with a few more family members and friends (not just immediate family and handful of their local friends) is desirable. People love to celebrate and honor the young couple (and perhaps too the parents). I know we always have chills (and tears of happiness) seeing a young couple in love embark on their married life together. It is such a happy time especially given the harder times we 50 and 60 year old parents have weathered. My DH and I would love to have a party for them following the wedding but my future daughter-in-law is leaving a few weeks after the wedding for a year abroad to complete research for her PhD dissertation. And as my name suggests, I have no daughters for whom to plan future weddings!</p>