Tradition dictates you have the shower two to four weeks before the wedding. But if your principal guests are from out of town, anytime before the wedding is proper, even a few days before. Think about when her best friend(s) will be in town, and plan accordingly.
Girls-only showers are usually held in the evenings or on weekends, coworker showers during the workday or at the end of one, and coed showers in the evenings or Sunday.
Popular shower options include: Saturday afternoon barbecue, Sunday brunch, evening cocktails, or dinner or dessert during the week.
Take into account how far people will have to come, people’s work schedules, the bride’s own schedule, and other things when planning your time.
Right after work works out well for a coworker party, because everyone is already there. You’d want to go somewhere for dinner if you do that.
For a barbecue, you would typically invite people to come around 4:30 or 5 P.M. and continue on into the evening. For a brunch, you’d probably give a 10 or 10:30 A.M. time and party on through noon. For a shower after church, the time will set itself.
An evening dessert-and-coffee girls-only shower would probably last about three hours, but advertise it in the invitations as lasting only two. You’d want to start it late enough so everyone can get through traffic from work, eat dinner, and still make it end early enough so everyone can get up the next day for work.
If you are planning a weekend shower, especially a coed one, the sky’s the limit on time. Figure about five hours. Advertise four in your invitations.
If you’re trying to answer this question for catering/room-rental purposes, use three hours as a rule of thumb. Two hours is how long it will officially last, and the third hour will be for happy hangers-on to chat with your bride and straggle out.
Luckily, your bride probably can give you a really good answer to this question. Your job is just to figure out how many people you want at the shower and tell her.
Obviously, if you’re hosting a coworkers-only shower, and you’re a coworker, this is a no-brainer and you don’t even need to tell the bride. Similarly for church, where you would probably know all her friends.
Some people will tell you you can invite only people who are also invited to the wedding, and some people don’t think that matters. It truly doesn’t matter if the people who will be at the shower won’t be at the wedding for some good reason anyway. Like, if she’s getting married in Missouri and you and your local friends of hers all live in Phoenix. Lots of people won’t be able to make it anyway, so invite whomever you choose.
If she’s having a small wedding, a remarriage, or a wedding far away from where she lives or you live, invite anyone you want, as long as she likes the person and you don’t invite any of her ex-boyfriends.
Showers held at a club, office, or church, of course, would include acquaintances or colleagues who might not be invited to the wedding.
Frankly, I think people will make their own choices about whether or not they want to attend the shower. If they are upset about not being invited to the wedding and boycott the shower because of it, so much the better. Weddings are supposed to be happy times, so why not invite everyone who cares about the bride and see who shows up with an RSVP?
Remember, the bride is the one who has the final say on whom you invite, unless you have decided on a surprise shower (see the section on surprise showers in Chapter 2). Show her the guest list.
If you are not a family friend, and this is not the only shower, or this is just for coworkers or other people who are not expected to know the family, you probably don’t. Ask your bride if there will be another shower her mom and other relatives will be attending. If there is, you need not worry about inviting them. If yours is the only shower, or if you personally are friends with the family, then certainly invite them.
Think about this fact before you decide the theme for your shower! You might be pretty embarrassed to invite her grandma to a lingerie wedding shower, and imagine how your bride would feel!
However, if you invite her family, it is absolutely mandatory that you also invite the womenfolk from her groom’s family, too!
Heck, no! If your bride-to-be is a single mom right now, you could theoretically have the shower at Chuck E. Cheese, a particularly loud, blaring, glaring pizza restaurant/indoor amusement park that little kids adore and most parents loathe), although I doubt that would go over big with most of the other women!
But you can sure have kids show up if the bride is (a) a mom already or (b) about to be a mom. Otherwise, skip the kids.
Sure, guys can come. This is often fun for the groom, who might not be as involved in the whirl of prewedding celebrations as the bride. (Of course, he could be happy about this, you might want to ask him.) If you invite men, make sure you invite a few single guys if you have a few single girls coming, unless the whole thing is couples. (Try to find cute single guys—ask the groom for help!) Many a match began with meeting at someone else’s wedding or related festivities. If your shower includes men, it’s best to have it in the evening or on Sunday. The shower category or theme, however, should be something of interest to the bride and the groom if he’s going to be there. Try something like a Bottle and Bar shower (where every gift has to be in one of those containers or forms); workshop, garden, or barbecue showers are all appropriate.
A typical at-home shower has about fifteen guests, plus the bride and you. Think about the location and time of day you’ll be having it if you want to change from these norms.
In reality, if you invite twenty people, fifteen will probably show up, despite RSVPs assuring you everyone will be there. A rule of thumb I always use is plan food for 20 percent more people than I invited, and plan seating for 20 percent less. Something always happens at the last minute.
Mail the invitations so they arrive no less than two weeks before your shower’s date. Figure it takes seven days for an invitation mailed first class to get across the country, four days for a neighboring state, and two days for a local address.
If you are inviting people from out of town to the shower, remember that airline reservations are much, much cheaper if they are made at least thirty days in advance, so work that into your schedule. I always find that six weeks’ notice seems to cover all the bases.
Before you mail the invitations, make sure the bride can make it, and if you are using an outside facility, that you have confirmed your reservation with a deposit.
If you’re the least bit creative, you might find it great fun to make the invitations yourself. You can buy lovely printed invitations or you can make them out of construction paper. You can laser-print them on paper you decorated or bought. Nobody said you have to buy the preprinted fill-in-the-blank kind!
If the shower will be at work, you can make a three-dimensional invitation, like a paper flower on a stem, that you can just set on people’s desks. If you have to mail them, as you will in most cases, you’ll need to make sure that your art project will fit into standard-sized envelopes!
For a Hawaiian shower I once threw, I bought green, yellow, and red tissue paper. I pressed it flat and cut out flower shapes. Then I scored the petals so they had depth, stapled them, and covered the staple with a dollop of red paint and glue I mixed together. I sprinkled it with gold glitter and attached it to a sheet of ordinary computer paper that had the actual invitation information on it.
Ideas for cute invitations could come to you from the theme of your shower. I’ve included some suggestions in the themes themselves. People will be amused and delighted by your cleverness because so few adults take the time to personalize anything anymore. No matter how common or sophisticated your intended party, handmade invitations can make a huge impression and even attract people to your event.
Skim back through the themes to see some invitation ideas. One from a theme other than the one you’ve chosen might spark a clever idea.
If you want to make your own life easier, you will definitely not forget to include these things with the invitation:
Date, time, and length of the shower
Whom guests may bring (kids, dogs, spouses or mates?)
The name and location of the bridal registry
The name of the bride and correct spelling of her groom’s name
A map to your house/the location (see the section “How Do I Make Sure Everyone Gets to My House?” in this chapter—and follow the directions given exactly!)
A description of the theme, if appropriate
Appropriate gift selections for your theme
An assigned type of dish if you are having a potluck (e.g., please bring a green salad that can serve ten people)
If you are serving a meal
What to wear, if necessary (e.g., everyone wears the wedding colors, or semiformal, or swimsuits and jeans)
RSVP information-MANDATORY if you are serving a meal or having one catered
A deadline to respond to the RSVP
People tend to understand directions in one of three ways. You should cover all three by including the following with your invitation: a small map (indicating north) that gives the route to your guests, a list of visual clues, and a set of written instructions, such as:
If you are coming South on the 405, take Elliott exit. Go right. Pass the 76 station (on your right) to the next light, Waldorf Street. Go left 2 blocks, past the park.
If you are coming North on the 405, take Elliot exit. Go left …
Use the visual cues (unless it will be pitch dark when the shower takes place and no one will see your visual cues) as well as written directions and an actual little map. Have someone else draw it if you’re not good at it.
This is really important because people tend to get flustered when they get lost, and it will not put them in the best mood for your shower. Your guests will be totally grateful for this bit of extra help, cued to the way they understand directions best. Further, you can double check it for accuracy and save yourself answering two or three phone calls from hopelessly lost guests frantic to get there in time on the day of the party!
Getting the people most important to the bride to the shower is something you must think about when you set the date and time. Although surely everyone will try to rearrange their schedule to accommodate whatever time you select, if one or more of her closest friends will be out of town when you have decided to hold the shower, it’s going to be sad. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to decide who these people are and call them in advance—before you decide on a definite date! Make sure it works for them before you invite everyone else.
Being organized is the secret of successful events. I’ve catered dozens of parties of all sorts, and I guarantee, being organized is the most critical part of a flawless event at which you can have fun, too. Figuring out who will be there is very important.
First, know that whatever responses you get, attendance will fluctuate by about 20 percent on the actual day. Someone will get sick, but someone else will probably decide they can make it after all. Just accept it.
Here’s how to handle your RSVPs. First, generate a list of those you invited. If you created the labels for the envelopes on a computer, this is easy. Give yourself a sheet of paper with six columns. (See page 81 for a sample. Heck, photocopy it and use it if you want!) When good people call by your deadline to RSVP, make a check in the Coming or Not Coming column and GET THEIR PHONE NUMBERS right then. Call those who don’t respond by the morning after your deadline. Get their numbers from the bride if you don’t already have them. Call them twice. If they still don’t respond, not only are they socially inept, they are highly unlikely to show up, so you can count them out. Don’t waste any brain space on this.
When you call to follow up on an RSVP, here’s what to say:
“Hi, I’m Janet Harding. I’m hosting Elaine Goldman’s wedding shower. Did you get the invitation?”
They answer, “Oh yeah! I meant to call you!”
You say, “I am wondering if you’ll be able to make it. I’m confirming the food now, and I want to be able to count on you.”
They answer. It’s over.
Or, if you don’t get them, leave a message like this:
“Hi, I’m Janet Harding. I’m hosting Elaine Goldman’s wedding shower. I sent you an invitation but I haven’t heard back from you. I’m calling to follow up. Can you please call me back tonight before 11 P.M. at 310-555-1212? Thanks so much! I know it’s really important to Elaine that you be invited, and I’m trying to confirm the catering arrangements.”
See how easy this is? If you REALLY hate this idea, get one of the women who said they want to help you with the shower to do it for you. Just make sure they DO it.
OK, now if they don’t follow up within a day or two of your message/conversation with a commitment, then call again three days after your first calls. ANYONE who doesn’t respond is either out of town, sick, or not interested (or just rude).
You’re planning on a 20 percent change ratio anyway, but using this foolproof, proven method, you’re bound to get most of your answers.
