Wedding Bells

Shower Etiquette 101

Wondering how involved you should be in planning your wedding shower? Here’s the 101 on shower etiquette. By Heather Farragher

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The tradition of wedding showers has been around for a long time, but the etiquette surrounding this pre-wedding event has varied over the years. The good news is that today’s showers are all about personal preference, and they can range from an intimate Sunday afternoon tea to an evening co-ed cocktail party.

Here’s how you can get involved in planning your shower in style.

Your Personal Preference
Sit down with those involved in the planning, and discuss what you want, need and expect. There may be a few important guidelines you should follow, but there really is no single formula for the perfect shower.

Hosting
The maid-of-honour usually hosts the shower, but friends or relatives can do it too. However, if you’re going to let someone else take over, make sure your MOH is ok with it. You might have more than one get-together if you feel it will be easier to accommodate different social groups. Don’t expect someone to host more than one event. Because the host usually foots the bill, the type of event that you want must be within the financial means of that person. Delegate responsibilities to help the host. Different people can take care of running party games, recording gift givers, or keeping refreshments stocked.

The Place and Time
Choose a venue that’s appropriate; will you have an intimate shower in someone’s home or should it be at a larger restaurant? Don’t feel constrained by certain time limits or the “traditional” afternoon shower. Suggest going out for brunch, or dinner, or having a cocktail party. Have your shower two to eight weeks before your wedding at a convenient and practical time, but keep in mind those who may be traveling a great distance.

The Guest List
Your guest list should include: your wedding party, your mother, sisters, your fiancé’s mother, her sisters, your closest girlfriends, co-workers and extended female family. By no means do you have to include every female you’ve invited to your wedding; however, everyone attending a shower should be invited to the wedding. On the other hand, feel free to have a co-ed shower for all your friends. 

Invitations and Registries
Send guests separate invitations, mailed a month before with all appropriate information including whom to contact with questions. Do not include your registry info on the invitations, but have your bridal party spread it by word of mouth. 

Entertaining
At the beginning of the shower, introduce everyone to each other explaining how you know them. Keep mingling and socializing throughout the event to make sure everyone is content. Depending on the venue and your guest list, playing a game can be an icebreaker; it might be trivia questions about and you and your fiancé, or personalized bingo, and so on. But be sure to keep it appropriate. Speak up if you know you are not comfortable with certain games, and let your MOH know you don’t want to be embarrassed.

Say Thank You
Make sure someone keeps track of the gifts and the givers so that you can send thank you cards easily and soon–within a week of the event is good. And don’t forget those who couldn’t attend, but who did send gifts.