Tee hee. I asked my daughter, do I need to pack your lunch?
That’s when she told me about the rehearsal dinner “cold plate”.
I seriously never heard that term in association with a plated dinner. I can see where it’s easier to prep ahead.
In my world, the parties are often the evening before the wedding. My fiance joked that his best man was supposed to get him drunk enough that he couldn’t back out.
I wonder what the groom and his guys will be doing the night before the wedding? While the sleepover is happening.
I can see this getting real silly.
Planning a wedding and planning for a marriage are two entirely different things. Hell, I don’t know how much you can plan for a marriage, because life can take a lot of twists and turns.
What you can do is: do what you can to make sure that your partner is the right person for you to go through those twists and turns with. Do you enjoy each other’s company? Do you trust and respect each other? Do you have shared or compatible values, goals, world view?
That’s what gets you through the day after tomorrow. Can’t see how a bridesmaid sleepover before the wedding is gonna mess any of that up.
I’m not questioning Spoons personal experience at all. I am suggesting that his own experience has affected his own perceptions - IMHO the jump from “having a sleepover for the bridesmaids” to “she’s not planning for the marriage” is quite a long one.
About eight or nine years ago, I used to see some maid of honor and bridesmaid “proposal” photos on social media. The bride-to-be “proposes” to the friends who she wants to have in those roles. Sometimes she organizes a lunch/dinner party for it. These seem to be much less popular now - I wonder if many people saw it as silly.
Miss Manners has a thoughtful and timely column today (second letter) about metastasizing wedding events:
It’s true that the individual social calendar is no longer such a major feature of life as it used to be (for one thing, the women who used to support and maintain those social calendars for their families are now all out working). People do much less home entertaining, there are fewer regular community social events like dances and bridge clubs, and friend groups tend to be much more geographically fragmented as their individual lives move on.
So it’s very understandable that on what the bride may consider possibly the last opportunity to get all her girlfriends together for socializing, she would want to cram in the girlfriend-partying as well as the wedding events.
Or, I don’t know, maybe this bride sees her friends all the time anyway and she’s just having a pre-wedding bridesmaid sleepover because she read in a bridal magazine that you’re supposed to. Whatever.
Anyway, in general I agree with Miss Manners that for whatever reason, a lot of what used to be considered routine social events are now getting offloaded onto wedding planning. You don’t just host a dinner for your social circle as a regular thing anymore, but you’ll give a rehearsal dinner or a post-wedding brunch or something like that. I’m all for whatever kinds and amounts of wedding-extravaganza fun the hosts want to throw at their guests, but I also love plain old no-occasion home entertaining, and I’m sorry that there’s less of it these days.
@Beckdawrek, maybe encourage Lil’wrekker to have grown-up girlfriend sleepovers from time to time for no reason at all except fun, and then she won’t have to try to stuff all her friend socializing into wedding events! 
This has been true of Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties for about 80 years.
I have a friend who threw a big destination wedding at a near-to-her destination. She said she had a blast, and the only part that was really stressful was the wedding itself. So she’s been throwing a destination party for all her friends at the same place every year since. Most of us pay what it costs to attend. We have access to a small kitchen, and “guests” cook breakfast to key the costs down. Some of the meals are takeout, also organized by guests through a big spreadsheet where you can volunteer for stuff. Friends bring games and model rockets. The venue provides a lake, boats, a pool, and a hot tub. It’s a weekend off hanging out with “friends of friend”. I usually attend, it’s a lot of fun. The original wedding was… Maybe 15 years ago?
I will thank Miss Manners, I don’t begrudge the bride and her choices. Heck, it’s her choice.
I just never heard of it around here. I fully prepared to say I’m way outta the loop on modern weddings.
Just wanted to hear funny stories about weddings they’ve seen.
Coulda mentioned that in the O.P.
Good point, there’s not a hell of a lot of actual transition to adulthood happening at the traditional Bat/Bar Mitzvah age of 12 or 13, in most cases.
I feel safe in assuming everyone knows about my posting style.
My rules are a lot looser than the Dope overall. I expect every one to be civil and everyone has heard of a weird wedding thing, they might wanna offer.
If not. Well why did you open the thread?
But I will try and amend my OPs from this moment forward.
TyFYO.
Because you asked a few questions in your OP. Thought maybe you wanted answers.
My bad.
My wife’s best friend and maid of honor stayed at our place the night before the wedding. We wanted to spend the night apart, so I got the bedroom while the two of them camped out in the living room and watched chick flicks. Does that count as a sleepover?
@Kimstu , she has plenty of funzies with girlfriends. I just think it’s me. I don’t think spending the night with bride before the wedding day was common practice a few years ago.
Eh. Maybe I’m wrong.
Not a few years ago, maybe, but a while before that.
In the days before bridal parties routinely got blocks of hotel rooms and brides tended to be married from their own homes at their own local church, odds are that if a bride had a married sister or far-flung friend coming to be a bridesmaid, she’d share the bride’s bedroom under her parental roof just like on any other visit. (And other local bridesmaids would often do the same for other non-local bridesmaids.) Not specifically advertised as a girlfriends’ sleepover party with all of the bride’s party in the same room, but a lot of staying up too late talking and giggling nonetheless got done.
If modern bridal couples are trying to bring back some of that traditional experience of sharing wedding preparation and anticipation with their friends, even if it’s only for one night in a hotel room (and even if the traditional wistful excitement/trepidation about the prospect of the bride very soon cohabiting with her bridegroom instead of her girlfriends has completely disappeared), I say more power to them.
I dunno. It snowed during my daughter’s bat mitzvah. We drive home and she said, “i guess it’s my responsibility to help clear the driveway, not that I’m an adult”.
We treated it as a transition. That’s when we stopped telling the kids what to wear to events, and instead just told them what was expected. Things like that.
Emphasis added. Looks like you maybe got a Printer’s Error there? 
Anyway, I hear what you’re saying and it’s nice, but of course that sort of shift in family dynamic has little impact at the legal or otherwise societal level. I guess it can be interpreted as starting the long transition to adulthood, rather than actually achieving it, but originally ISTM it was a far more life-altering milestone.
Yeah, she said, “now”.