Cha-Ching!
If anyone on this planet knows how to raise money, it's a Manitoban. I think Saskatcheweiners come in a close second....
My Dutch blogfriend Herman read my last post and asked me what a wedding shower was. No, it's not a bridal party bathing together; it is a gift-giving party for a prospective bride. Historically, bridal showers were organized by the maid of honour, or all of the bridesmaids in tandem, as well as by the mother of the bride-to-be and her future mother-in-law. As you can guess, it can become quite an expensive proposition for the moms, who are expected to be present at every shower thrown. Back in the 60's, which is about as far as my memory goes, showers were usually held in the livingroom or rec room of the organizer, with about 10-15 women present. Each attendee would bring some home-baked dainties and a modest gift (price range: 15-20 bucks) for the honouree. The gifts were intended to be the kind of small, household things that a young woman would need to fill her kitchen utensil drawers and cupboards - nothing too extravagent. Sometimes, the showers had themes, like "kitchen" or "bathroom," or even something as specific as "cups and saucers" or "baking." My own mother had a cups and saucers shower for me; for years I would swear at the dainty, frilly, flowery, impossible-to-hold-onto-the-teeny-tiny-handled china dishes that took up too much cupboard space and required annual washing (I never used them)....until I dumped them all for 50 cents each at a yard sale. ("Fifty cents!" cried the man who purchased them all. "Are you nuts? These are Royal Doulton; do you know how much these things are worth?" "Mister," I replied, "if you're happy with them, I'm happy to have you take them off my hands. Enjoy.")
What I don't like about wedding showers is that often the women invited to them are not invited to the wedding, so gettin a shower invitation is some sort of consolation prize (you're good enough to come to my shower, but not for me to pay for a plate of food for you and your date); and you feel obligated to vie for Miss Congeniality by graciously attending and givin a nice present so that you don't look like a poor sport.
It used to be that shower guests were required to play dumb games, games at which you had to demean yourself so that you might win a set of plastic measuring spoons or an egg timer in the shape of a green pepper. Dumb.
The bride, as she happily unwrapped her gifts, and the guests oohed and aahed over them, would sit in a chair draped with a white sheet and festooned with streamers and balloons. As her bridesmaids dutifully recorded what gift had been given by whom (for etiquette required that chatty little thank you cards be sent out within two weeks), they would decorate a paper plate with the ribbons and bows removed from the presents, to make a hat for the bride to wear. Dumber.
The one great thing about wedding showers was the food. Not only were there tons of home-baked squares and tarts, but those wonderful little sammiches filled with home-made egg and tuna salad, cream cheese and cherries, and ham. Little tiny spirals and triangles that made you feel dainty while you were scarfin down a couple dozen of them.
Then, somewhere in the 70's, things began to change....Suddenly, a small gift wasn't enough: Guests had to also throw in 5 or 10 bucks towards the purchase of a "big" gift. Showers began to have more risque themes like "lingerie showers," which I avoided like the plague because I was too embarrassed to enter The Love Shop to purchase a nightie with cutouts, or some garish purple battery-operated sex toy, much less witness all the lurid comments when the thing was unwrapped at the party.
It really bugs me when a shower invitation includes the instruction to give items that are on the "bride's registry," especially when she demands such gifts as an "ergonomically correct" electric knife (which costs five times as much as the one I have been eyeballing at Wal-Mart); and she ordains that the items be purchased at one of the priciest stores in the city. I'll give you what I'll give you, and you'll smile sweetly and say thank you, whether you mean it or not. So there.
There's a lot of pressure to use the registry (the designated store even has a computer program to record purchases in order to avoid duplication). Heck, when I got married, I didn't mind gettin three coffee-makers: I'd keep the one I liked best and give the other two away as wedding gifts ha ha. (And, by the way, note that in those days a coffee maker would be a WEDDING, not a shower gift.)
Eventually, the UKRAINIANS got hold of wedding showers. Ukrainian women can organize and cook like nobody's business. Suddenly, showers were being held in rented halls and church basements, with over 200 guests invited. (I was once invited to a shower for a girl I couldn't remember until I went through my high school yearbook and discovered we had played on the same field hockey team for one season.) And the gifts became more and more extravagent, the kind of stuff that, up until then, only the parents of the bride and groom MIGHT give as wedding gifts: washers and dryers, vacuum cleaners, and the like. Made my steak knife set wrapped in a tea towel look pretty paltry....
And as if this wasn't enough of a pre-wedding bonanza, Manitobans came up with THE SOCIAL. A social is a dance held in a large rented hall, for which tickets are sold to as many people, dead or alive, as the organizers can round up. Long tables with metal folding chairs are arranged in mess-hall style, with a dance floor in the middle. A live band, or, more often, a "music man" (DJ) is hired to play music at approximately 10,000 decibels, so as to make conversation completely impossible, and to cause your ears to ring for days afterwards. Tickets are sold for the consumption of cheap booze....and sometime during the night, the groomsmen are always sent out to buy way more than the liquor license allows, and to dispose of the empty bottles, lest the liquor commission send its inspectors around to check. More tickets are sold for a "silent auction" (which used to be termed a "Chinese auction," until that moniker was deemed politically incorrect). The "auction" consists of long tables of prizes that have been solicited by local businesses, each numbered. Ticket purchasers drop tickets into paper bags with corresponding numbers, in the hopes that they will win the desired item(s) at a drawing later in the evening.
Once guests are nice and liquored up (because a drunken fool and his money are soon parted), members of the couple's family, or their friends, come around with ANOTHER roll of tickets, selling an arm's length for a door prize or 50% of the take.
I attended countless socials during my wayward youth; prior to the smoking ban, they were stinky, noisy affairs that often featured drunken brawls. Once drunk driving laws in the province were toughened, things tamed down some, because at least one of each group of revellers was deemed the designated driver; so there was a considerable number of guests who were not skunker than drunks.
Not all socials are for wedding couples; many are organized as fund-raisers for charities or other worthy causes. I once attended one that was a heartfelt effort to raise funds for the purchase of a wheelchair van for friends whose son had been paralyzed in a tragic ATV accident. The tone of it was considerably more wholesome than most, and featured many inspiring speeches and presentations.
By the time the wedding day arrives, the bride and groom have already hauled in a lot of loot; so often they request "presentation only" on their invitations. That means cash. There's a lot of debate as to how much you should give. It's generally assumed that you will try to at least cover the cost of your plate(s) of food; if you're a close friend or relative, you are expected to give more.
If you are invited to a wedding, it is an unspoken rule that the guests should attend any or all socials for the couple, and the women should attend at least one bridal shower. Given the current lavishness of the gifts, you have to practically take out a second mortgage to fulfil the "honour" of an invitation. I'm tempted to draw up a contract, insisting that the couple remain married for a minimum of ten years. I mean, with today's divorce rates, I can't afford for them to break up and re-marry. Not until I've had some time to save up.
the ties that bind
