Call me old fashioned but I enjoy seeing beautifully wrapped gifts and that is a fun part of the shower. I don’t enjoy the silly games other that those that involve “first person to show a Bloomingdale’s credit card” wins a prize . The fun part of the shower is celebrating with those you know and those you have just met and will see at the wedding.
I have been asked to bring recipes and that is of course fine and fun. For a baby shower for a former colleague we were all asked to bring a book to fill up her bookshelf for the baby’s room and that was fun.
Only bridal shower that I went to without gits was for my college roommate’s daughter. The bride lived in Florida and her mom lives here in NY and so gifts were sent to Florida however we were asked to share a picture or write a description of the gift in a go around the room sort of thing so everyone could all be excited about the gifts she would b receiving.
Some of the invites read “be a dear, wrap in clear”! I think it is all to reduce the time the guests have to spend watching the bride-to-be open gifts. That is great, if you are at the shower with dear friends or family, but not so great if you really don’t know too many of the fellow guests.
I have also been to a shower where we were asked not to wrap. This is partially to reduce time to open the gifts, but also to be environmentally friendly. As someone said above, the issue was that the fragile item I bought was in a box. Made no sense to not wrap it, but I taped a picture from the website to the top. Of course, some people still wrapped so it was not uniform. The bride did not even really look at the gifts. I have to admit I like seeing my wedding or baby shower gift opened, especially if it is something special and not just an item on the registry.
Where I live, it is customary to give money for the wedding. Giving money for a shower or paying for the honeymoon is not appealing to me. if the shower recipient truly doesn’t need or want anything (doesn’t everyone want some nice new towels, a good knife, wine glasses or a great pot?), then don’t have a shower and have mom (who usually ends up paying for a big chunk of it) give you the money for the trip.
I know I was out of it with weddings when I first learned of the “first look”. I get the appeal, but I still thnk there is something special about the groom seeing the bride for the first time as she walks down the aisle.
I agree I don’t mind the opening and prefer that to some of the games.