Here is a HISTORY of Bridal Shower’s “the guidelines of earlier times”: http://worldbridemagazine.com/3546/modern-lessons-from-history-the-bridal-shower/
I had to attend a wedding shower this past weekend. I was happy to go. It was in celebration of my future cousin-in-law, and I absolutely adore her so love to celebrate her. She’s beautiful, she’s a fucking blast, and she is a perfect addition to my family. I would lie in down traffic for her.
But to be completely honest, I’d have rather lied down in the traffic.
Wedding showers are always before noon, they insist on outfits that require nylons, and they provide Mimosas in an environment where I’ve been judged for getting drunk. Wholly unfair and mostly unnecessary, especially in Century 21.
Calling the bridal shower antiquated is generous. The tradition (*fart noise*) originated back with dowries – in a simpler time when witches were still blamed for crop failures – and one was put together when a girl’s father either couldn’t or wouldn’t pay her dowry. Friends would step in with gifts to help the young woman start her life.
Fast forward to when my mother got married in the 1970s. Women (or girls, let’s face it) left their parents at an early age and had almost nothing with which to build their own home. The showers were simple and often in a grandmother’s living room, quite possibly with a plastic slip cover on the sofa.
But let’s face it: the only people left who are still living with their parents when they get engaged these days are the Duggar children. The rest of us have lives and brains. According to The Atlantic, the average age women get married in the U.S. now is 27. And nearly half of those women (48 percent, says US News) live with the person they’re marrying before they hit the altar.
By my calculations, that means that at least 48 percent of all women getting married should not be having a bridal shower. And that percentage doesn’t even include the women who live separately from their bae while owning their own home. And, quite frankly, that percentage doesn’t include any woman who’s ever invited me to her apartment for dinner and didn’t make me eat off the floor. You have plates. I’m not buying you new ones. Certainly not just because they’re nicer plates, and certainly not while I’m still eating off the same Tupperware plates I used when I was 5.
If I can afford new dishes, take a guess who I’m getting them for.
I rant like this, but honestly, I’m realistic and (somewhat) sympathetic. I embrace that in this instance I need an understanding of my society. I’ll be invited to more showers, and I love the women in my life, so I will go. But be aware that I will follow the guidelines of earlier times when “simple yet useful home goods” were not only gifted, but actually needed. So I will check off the KitchenAid mixer you registered for, but you’ll be getting a mixing bowl, wooden spoon, and my sincerest wishes for happiness instead.
From me, with love, to you, my friend.
— Charlotte Cannon