Planning a wedding is an incredibly time consuming, expensive and stressful time. My fiance and I have been together for many years prior to getting engaged, including living together far away from any family. I have already written about our registering experience, and while we are not getting married until December, we had our first shower at the end of June.
My fiance's family hosted this first shower, and it doubled as a reunion/BBQ as well. It was an incredibly HOT day. We had a tent up in the yard, along with a fan going inside of the garage to try and keep things relatively cool (it did not work). We had the usual BBQ fodder; hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, potato salad, fruit salad, etc. Everything was great, and we had a lot of family and friends show up -- and it was awesome to see everyone.
We were also very blessed by the amount of giving our family did. It was not necessary, but we are very grateful and thankful for everyone's generosity. We opened our gifts in the garage, and it was miserably hot. We were dripping sweat, and half the people chose to stay outside and ignore the proceedings (I cannot blame them!).
My future mother in law did a fantastic job getting everything together; sending invites, buying decorations/food, preparing everything and opening up their home to everyone.
Our next (and last!) shower is not until October, and I am glad we were able to space them out. We wrote thank you cards all day on Monday and put them in the mail soon after. I enjoy being able to get our notes out ASAP because I want everyone to know how grateful we are.
Now that I am an expert (not), I have some tips I want to share:
1. Wear comfortable clothes. Wedding showers are awkward, and you will feel better if you are comfortable and confident.
2. Make your partner sit with you while opening gifts -- they are for them too and it is helpful to have an extra set of hands.
3. Make sure someone is writing down all gifts, and who they are from. Preferably someone who knows who people are, just for ease on their part.
4. Write thank-you cards while everything is still fresh in your mind. I like to be able to reference something we talked about and make the card very personal so it doesn't feel stale. It is easier to do this right after the event.
5. Be sure to talk to everyone! It is hard to do, but you don't want anyone to feel unappreciated or hurt.
The shower in October is going to be bigger (40ish people?) so we will see how well I will be able to follow my own advice!
