I hear that wedding showers suck, I don’t know this first hand, but after to a friend of mine who had two this past weekend, I have come to realize they are different then I imagined. I guess my sick little 14 year old mind is stuck in the gutter whenever it involves young eligibile girls and showers(my mind just removes the word wedding- and I am left with shower), what am I supposed to think- that they are playing stupid games and giving lame gifts from the bed bath and beyond registry.
I guess I always thought wedding showers had something to do with all the girls getting into the shower together. Or at least some hunky construction worker stripping to Pour Some Sugar On Me. But what really goes on, is nothing of the sort. Sorry guys, no strippers, no sex talk (although I am convinced toys to keep the girl occupied during needa are given) and no strippers.
I remember when I found out about gift registries, I was amazed, and I was completely disappointed as well. I always prefer surprises, even if they come in the form of multiple copies of the book Great Jews in Sports which secular cousins love to give you for gifts. One would figure wedding gifts would be a surprise, but its just some registry at bed bath and beyond- because you can return the gifts for cash. If you want cash, why cant you just ask. The problem with wedding showers is that they too have taken on this idea of the gift registry.
My friend was telling me that she would always buy cool stuff for her friends from the infamous “back of Marshalls”, I must admit that I love buying people obscenely avant-garde vases from the back of Marshalls that claim to have been made in Italy, but seem to take on the “made in a Chinese sweatshop” look after a few minutes of back seat of the car heat waves. The problem that gift registries create at wedding showers is this, as we all know from our glimpses into wedding showers, via cracks in the door or sex and the city episodes- all the girls sit around in a circle cradling their pink tissue paper wrapped gifts and thrust them upon the bride to be. I find this practice completely ridiculous if you are on a registry. I can just imagine the bride to be saying “oh I was wondering who would get me the matching towel wash cloth set, but it’s the wrong color- we put down orange and this is yellow tinted red”
The other problem that the wedding shower registry creates is that when my friend would bust out her fancy yet cheap back of Marshalls gift, the bride to be would give her a quizzical look and say “where’d you find this” at which point she would have to admit that it was on clearance at the Marshalls Home Goods store- and in fact it had multiple layers of clearance stickers, and features an unseen blemish just under one of the handles. “But this wasn’t on the registry” But don’t worry you can return unwanted items for cash. How lame is that?
The other thing they do at wedding showers, besides eat salad and strawberry shortcake is play games, really stupid games.
My friend was telling me about this one really frum girls wedding shower where they put different things on sponges and you had to smell it and know what it was. It was to prepare the girls for a lifelong exile to the kitchen with only their sponges and brillos to protect them- as Simon and Garfunkel would say. I found this to be hilarious and now my fantasies of what wedding showers are according to folks like me who are practicing to achieve “dirty old man status” at a very young age.
I am sure some people have interesting wedding showers, but based on my conversation with my buddy- I am kind of happy I don’t have to waste Sunday afternoons playing pin the chosson on the kallah and smell the household cleaning product on the sponge- if its Mr Clean- that doesn’t sound to tznius. My friends wedding shower sounded pretty interesting, her friends took her dancing at A Lesbian club, and then karaoke at a Gay club- no she’s not Gay- but maybe that’s the frum way of doing things.