Do people really get gifts at the bridal shower and the wedding day?
What the vendors of The Wedding Industry say is “the right thing to do” and what true etiquette experts like Emily Post and Miss Manners tell us is CORRECT … these are very different things. Traditionally a shower was a lot like a surprise birthday party. There wasn’t a shower for every wedding anymore than there is a surprise party for every birthday. If there was some group of acquaintances who wanted to give the bride a pleasant surprise, they would pool their money to get some light refreshments, a roll of crepe paper, and a Grand Prize. Guests got to snack, play silly games for cheap silly prizes, and one of the lucky guests won the Grand Prize. The bride absolutely had no part in planning a shower. As you say, it is greedy to give a shower for a member of ones own family, or even ones soon to be family. When people spontaneously wish to shower the bride with gifts, that is one matter, but to try to engineer such a group by “mining” the wedding guest would once have been conside
