Weddings are perverse this way. So often I’ve heard brides who otherwise know nothing and care nothing about formal etiquette suddenly get all high and might when their guests don’t know or care to comply with the etiquette involving RSVPs and invitations (for example, if kids are not included in address, they are not invited).
Yet these same brides will do things like you described, or have a shower hosted by a close relative, or will include registry information with a shower invite, or will write shitty thank-yous.
For me, I don’t think Emily Post is the end-all and be-all of civil society. That’s fine, I think, if brides want to bend a few rules, But for fuck’s sake, to bend them when it is convenient for THE BRIDE, but then condescend to guests who don’t follow them to the letter… well, what a load of CRAP.
ps, i did both of the above for my baby shower (except that i hosted the shower myself since no one else was willing), and i certainly elt justified being upset that only one person out of fifty rsvp’d. the day of the shower i had no idea how many people were coming, whether i had enough food or chairs or anything.
The idea behind not having a relative host the shower is that it appears that the family is shilling for gifts for one of its members. I have to admit that even I, collector of antique etiquette books, have trouble seeing why it’s so bad to have your sister host, rather than a friend. Especially if she’s your MOH.
For the registry, I’ve understood that it’s OK to include registry info in a shower invitation, because the reason for the party is, after all, to give gifts. But it’s in bad taste to put it in the WEDDING invitation. People are supposed to call the bride’s mother or the MOH if they want to know about the registry.
Cessandra, I feel your pain. Not RSVP’ing is my other party peeve. We give occasional large parties and always ask for RSVPs, and there are always too many nonresponders. How am I supposed to know whether to plan for 20 people or 50? All I have to say about that is, if you don’t respond, then you’d damned well better not show up.
Oh, and no one else was WILLING? That really sucks. Some friends!
About five years ago a friend of mine got pregnant and was promptly dumped by her boyfriend. She already had a 10-year-old (so had gotten rid of the previous baby stuff) and was pretty poor. I didn’t know her very well at the time, but when she was about 5 months along I asked one of her closer friends if there was going to be a shower. Nobody had thought to plan one. :mad: So I did it, despite the fact that I hate those things. It was probably the least girly baby shower ever given – but I managed to find some games that weren’t stupid and actually kind of fun, and my friend got some very useful gifts that she truly needed and appreciated, and never would have been able to afford on her own.
And since the half-dozen guests were all her close personal friends, she already knew all their addresses and wrote her own thank-yous. The one she wrote to me was just lovely.
if i have a bridal shower* (though i probably won’t), i’ll probably have to host it myself due to the same problem of no one else being willing. the only person who is ever willing is my mom, and she has to have everything her way. she didn’t want my husband to come to the baby shower (which i don’t get – he’s expected to change diapers in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t get to come to a party celebrating his own child’s impending birth???)
so how rude do you consider it to be to throw your own shower? if it matters, the reason i had a baby shower was less about getting presents and more about not having had any adult company since i went on maternity leave almost a month earlier. a bridal shower would be for the same reason.
*if you’re confused, i talk like i’m married, but technically we haven’t had a wedding, yet.
i don’t blame them. i’m not good at keeping in touch with my friends, and no one thinks to plan a shower for someone they haven’t seen in six months. although it was really nice to see them all, i didn’t expect anything more than for them to show up.
the only “friend” i got upset with was one of my supposed best friends who was too busy shacking up with my ex-fiancé to even come.
Cessendra, hosting your own shower is basically saying, “Give me gifts!”
Showers aren’t about having company; they’re about giving gifts to the guest of honor.
I’ve been to plenty of bridal and baby showers hosted by the guest of honor’s sister or sister-in-law (which I guess is against the rules, but seems okay to me) but hosting your own seems a bit tacky.
And Public Blast, it also reflects badly on your parents and your wife’s parents. I’m sure there are people who were at your wedding thinking, “Boy, they didn’t raise Public Blast/Mrs. Public Blast right. He/She doesn’t even know enough to write thank-you notes!”
I was brought up to send thank you notes. I did some when I was little, mostly with my mother holding the metaphorical gun to my head. Well, it wasn’t that bad, but my mother did expect it. My first real experience with lots of T-Yous was HS graduation. I got my cute little cards printed with my name and everything, and sent out God only knows how many thank-you notes. I didn’t like it, but it was expected and appreciated.
When I got married I had three showers by different people. One was given by a large group of my parents’ friends and invited quite a few people - lovely wine and cheese party in a large antebellum home, very fancy. That wasn’t a “gift-grab” kind of thing but I still sent thank-yous to people who showed up and the hosts got two - one for the gift and one for hosting the pary. Another was by my grandmother’s church - people that didn’t even really know me had a nice shower for me and gave me very expensive gifts. You had better believe they all got lovely, personal thank-you notes. Even if I had to call around and dig up names and addresses.
About a year later I had a baby. I told most of the people (through my mother,mostly) that I understood they had just hosted wonder parties in my honor and I wouldn’t be offended in the least if they felt that a baby shower would be over-doing it (I only brought it up because they had started the “shower talk”). So they waited until the baby was three months old and threw me another shower!
All of us - my parents’ friends and their kids who are my age - have just always done things this way. I think without some sort of acknowledgement or thanks these kind of parties would fade out. I mean, who wants to go to all the trouble of planning a party if no one noitces the effort you’ve made? We all give each other stuff to help the others out and the effort is acknowledged. It makes us all like a big extended family.
Maybe that’s going off the deep end of the Thank You note discussion - but that’s my take on it.
What Kinsey said about hosting your own shower. If it’s truly about having an adult gathering, then just have a generic party and don’t call it a shower. I have a small group of married-couple friends who take turns inviting the others over for dinner every month or so, just to get together, try out new recipes on close/understanding friends and gab, maybe watch a movie together after dinner. If we didn’t make a point of this, we’d never see each other, with our busy lives. You could just host such a dinner (or lunch) party for your girlfriends. Or even a group thing with your fiancé, and invite all your best buds, guys and girls, for a more intimate gathering before the (big, formal?) wedding.
Or just invite those same people to the wedding, which is also an adult gathering.
Rez, that’s lovely. People certainly were generous to you (all those relative strangers and lovely gifts!) on the occasion of your wedding and baby. I can’t imagine NOT thanking the givers for such surprise generosity. I’m sure your child will be raised to be as gracious as you are.
I am a letter writer and card sender at heart and never miss an opportunity to break out my collection of notecards to thank someone for something. For example, thanking my sister for letting me spend the night at her place, or thanking my aunt for the nice visit we just had, etc. I enjoy doing it.
I also love to send my nieces and nephews little gifts from time to time, and always on their birthdays or Christmas since they all live out of state. Never have I received a thank you note, and I don’t complain to them about it–I just figure that’s how kids are these days. We were taught in school to do this, and of course by parents, but evidently gratitude is a lost art. It doesn’t surprise me the rudeness of twentysomethings (I’m a mid thirtysomething).
Heh. For all those who don’t believe in sending thank-you notes, I’d just like to relate one of my favorite anecdotes.
A friend of mine came into what amounted to a large pile of cash, all due to the deaths of several distant relatives in a relatively short period of time. There were other family members to whom the money could have gone, but she (my friend) managed to scoop the pot. I knew it was nosey and I knew it was wrong, but I just had to ask, “How did you manage to get named in all those wills?”
She smiled brightly and said, “I always sent thank-you notes!”
I didn’t get a wedding shower or a baby shower. It hurt my feelings, but what are you gonna do?
My grandfather on my father’s side hasn’t spoken to me in years and years because I thanked him over the phone for something rather than writing a note. He can kiss my ass. If his love is so fucking conditional then I don’t need it.
We sent thank you notes for every gift we got at our wedding.
I don’t know what the custom is where you graduated, Opal, but I got lots of gifties when I graduated from high school and was expected to write thank-you notes accordingly. The gifts weren’t large, for the most part - lots of $10 or $20 bills and such - but they were sent by relatives who normally didn’t exchange presents with my family for birthdays and Christmas, so it still felt like the mother lode.
Actually I also got presents for my eighth-grade graduation, though not as many, and again my mother let it be known that properly brought up young ladies (and gentlemen) sent thank-you notes for all presents. I was awarded a savings bond for having the highest math grades in my class, and my mother made me write a thank-you note for that. I still think she was a bit obsessive on that one, since it was an award and not a present, but oh well. Took maybe 15 minutes out of my life, so…
I sadly believe that the popularity of those silly tricks like having every guest at a bridal shower address her own envelope are actually being promoted by those bridal magazines, and described as “a cute and clever idea to save time!” I have some small measure of sympathy for a bride who believes this is an appropriate thing to do because she read it in a presumably reliable source. If you don’t know any better, and then learn about it in a publication that claims to tell you the proper way to do things, I can see why some brides think it is acceptable.
A nicer thing (probably also heralded as a cute and clever way to do something in a bridal mag) that I saw at a shower recently was to give the bride a pretty address book, and pass it around for each guest to write her name and address. This solves the problem of “but I don’t know my grandmother’s neighbor’s daughter’s address,” especially if the invitation to the shower was verbal.
Gift registry – always a problem. I think this might be one of those times where I admit defeat on a point of etiquette. It is so common now, its hard to explain to people that registry information isn’t correct for a wedding invitation. So many people expect it.
Jodi, that form letter thank you story – that is the LIVING END. My god.
My biggest peeve about wedding etiquette going out the window is the notion, encouraged by bridal magazines and consultants and the media and everyone else, is that the concept of a wedding as being “the bride’s special day” is being horribly abused. Yes, it is your special day, and that means you are within your rights to insist on choosing your own wedding veil even if your MIL wants another style. It does not, however, excuse the bride from basic courtesy. I had a friend, a GOOD FRIEND WHO IS USUALLY A KIND AND POLITE PERSON, actually tell me that she was going to un-invite someone from her wedding. Her mother had pushed her to invite this person, and my friend gave in. After thinking about it, after the invitation had been sent, the bride felt she wasn’t really close enough to this person to want him at the wedding. As she was telling me this, she must of seen my look of horror, because she finished up with “but it’s okay, because it’s the bride’s special day, right?” Wrong! We’re close enough friends that I felt comfortable pointing out that while she might have decided to veto the invitation when it was first proposed by her mother, that changing her mind after the wedding invitation was sent was NOT AN OPTION. Unless he had killed her dog, or something. Which he hadn’t.
(The following remarks are not directed at delphica – she simply brought up the topic)
Yes, that’s a little better, but it still defies logic. Aren’t most shower invitations mailed? For every shower I’ve ever been invited to, they were. So the bride (or whoever) already has my address. I doubt many shower guests move house between the shower and what would be an appropriate time for receiving a note. If they do happen to move, well, the note will be forwarded, or the person who’s moving will let their friends/family know the new address. The occasion for address correction is when you move, not when you give a gift.
For verbal invitations, usually you’re only supposed to invite close friends and family, whose addresses you presumably have. But for surprise showers, co-workers, grandma’s neighbor’s daughter, etc., you can still use the phone book, if not for the address, then to call grandma and ask her to get the address from her neighbor.
But I guess I wouldn’t mind the “write your name and address in this book” thing if it’s called a guest book, like at funerals.
And you’re right, delphica – the horrid address-your-own-envelope idea IS being touted as a clever timesaver for “busy brides who have so many other things to do.” Yeah right – “I couldn’t write you a thank-you note, Aunt Scarlett, because I was so busy finding the right color of dye so my pubic hair would match the groom’s boutonniere. . .”
and wrote her own thank-yous. The one she wrote to me was just lovely.
and gab, maybe watch a movie together after dinner. If we didn’t make a point of this, we’d never see each other, with our busy lives. You could just host such a dinner (or lunch) party for your girlfriends. Or even a group thing with your fiancé, and invite all your best buds, guys and girls, for a more intimate gathering before the (big, formal?) wedding.