The Wedding Shower: The Modern Dowry

Wedding Shower - tradition

A Wedding Shower is the American custom of providing a gift-giving party for the bride before her wedding. Although predominantly American, it is starting to be adopted by a few other countries, though not yet widely in Europe where wedding presents are displayed but not in the same way as with a bridal shower.

The Wedding Shower is traditionally hosted by the maid-of-honor and the bridesmaids, but this is becoming less of a necessity, and many mothers of the bride now host a shower. The practice is said to reflect the old dowry system, where the bride was expected to provide a dowry to the husband or his family. If the bride’s family was poor, very often friends and family would club together to provide a dowry for her and enable her to marry the man she wanted to marry. In many societies, a woman could not marry without one, and because of this female children were a great burden on the family. This is particularly true in countries such as India, where infanticide of female babies is not uncommon as a means of reducing the future dowry burden.

Wedding Shower - protocol

In the USA, the Wedding Shower has developed into an occasion where the friends and family of the bride can get together socially one or two months before the wedding, and the shower can take many different forms. The number one rule for the shower is that everybody invited must also be invited to the wedding. Since an invitation involves giving a gift, then it is considered greedy to invite somebody to the shower but not to the wedding. Friends not invited to the wedding can provide a gift if they want, but should not be invited to.

The person hosting the Wedding Shower will have to decide whether to have a party for women only, or whether to have a ‘Jack and Jill’ shower where male and female friends are invited. The latter is becoming more acceptable and more common, though most are still for girls only.

Wedding Shower - registry

The bride should ideally draw up a list of preferred wedding gifts, so that she gets what she needs, and if the list is reduced as presents are provided, there is less chance of duplicates. Two Chevrolet convertibles are more than acceptable, but nobody needs two toasters or irons. Many brides register with retail outlets, and the outlets make sure that there are no duplicates. Your stated gifts should cover a wide price range to suit those that have little money in addition to friends and relatives that want to splash Wedding Shower gifts on you.

It is usually a good idea for the bride to be asked if she has a particular theme in mind for her Wedding Shower, or something she definitely does not want. The bridal shower can take any one of a huge number of possible forms. A spa shower is popular, with everybody having a spa treatment, and they can also be held at local restaurants. Many restaurants give the party a room, and a discount on the meals. You can have a pizza shower or even a barbecue shower. A beach barbecue is particularly popular, with beach volleyball and other games.

Wedding Shower - themed

Some showers are based on gift themes, and the bride can have more than one. There can be a kitchen shower, where all the gifts are connected with kitchen equipment, and bedroom showers where gifts such as pillows, sheets and even bedroom furniture are given. Some brides are given a Wedding Shower hosted by the maid-of-honor and bridesmaids just for her friends, and another hosted by her mother for her relatives. It is not unknown for the groom’s parents to host a Jack and Jill shower for the bride and groom and all the grooms friends and relatives.

Each of these ideas is acceptable now, since the Wedding Shower is increasingly becoming a social event and an integral part of the whole marrying process. It is also becoming the done thing to provide party favors to the guests, though smaller favors than you would expect to find at the wedding reception itself.

Wedding Shower - memories

Whatever form the Wedding Shower takes, its primary purpose is to provide a vehicle for the bride to have some time with her friends and family before the wedding, and to provide a social vehicle enabling guests to present her with their gifts. In many countries, it is still the custom to address the gift, or at least present it, to the bride’s family who then display them to visitors prior to them being passed on to the bride. That is a direct reference to the old dowry custom aforementioned, when the money and gifts given by friends and relatives to help with the dowry were given to the bride’s parents, not to the bride herself.

The Wedding Shower gives the bride and groom a good start in life, with the necessities needed to furnish and equip a home, though the practical side is becoming less important as more couples already have their own homes when they marry. It is then a means of topping up or upgrading on what they already have. However, it is still an exciting time and is usually the first social event in the diary of a wedding, thus bringing the reality of the whole thing that much closer.










Wedding Shower

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