Multiple bridal showers: Who do you invite to which one?
Filed under: Negotiating Speed Bumps, Pre-Ceremony Parties, Relationships, Gifts and Registries, Keeping the Memory, Engagement, Etiquette, Wedding party
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With friends and family scattered across the map and circles of friends growing wider, it's certainly possible to fill more than one guest list for a bridal shower. With the growing trend of bridal shower themes -- stock-the-bar, kitchen, couples, etc -- it's understandable that you may want to cram as much fun as possible into your engagement period. But what does etiquette say about multiple showers and, more importantly, inviting the same people to more than one?Traditionally brides were only thrown one bridal shower by their bridal party, but that is changing as the landscape of traditional weddings changes. Regardless if your wedding isn't adhering to tradition, it is important to keep in mind that the underlining theme of a shower is to receive well wishes and gifts from your friends and family, so too many showers can risk making you look greedy. Regardless of how many showers you have, etiquette does dictate that you don't over-invite your guests, but you can certainly have more than one shower while avoiding a lot of eye rolling and whispering from those closest to you. Here's how:
- Keep the groups separate: if your closest co-worker wants to shower you with fun, ask her to throw you an office-only bridal shower. This way your co-workers are only invited to one shower, and everyone attending knows one another and feels comfortable to talk about the expense reports or who ate who's sandwich out of the office fridge.
- Keep the locations separate: if most of your family is in Oklahoma, but you're in Maine, or all of your sorority sisters still live in your old college town, but you are hundreds of miles away, fly in for an out-of-town shower for just that particular group of family or friends. This way, you won't feel obligated to invite those out-of-towners to your local shower, and they won't feel obligated to come.
- Bridal party?: Some people find it customary to invite the bridal party to each shower that is thrown, not to completely drain their bank accounts but to include them in every moment of the march to the wedding day. This decision -- to invite or to not invite -- is up to you, but it's one that should be made with your bridesmaids in mind. If you and your sister are inseparable, and you know she'd be hurt if she didn't get an invitation to every party, include her. But if your distant cousin is standing in the wedding as a favor to your parents, choose the most appropriate shower for her to attend and leave her off the other guest lists.
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