This comes from Louise's thread, I didn't want to take it over...

Do people bring wedding gifts to the actual wedding, or before to the home of the bride/groom?

Here, it's pretty unheard of to bring the gift to the wedding, unless you're giving a gift of cash. Even then I think the cash is sometimes brought to the home in the same way as a more tangible gift.

Traditionally people buy a present, and bring it to the home of the bride (or the groom if they don't know the bride, but if they know both then the bride) in the two weeks preceding the wedding. The family will have food and drink and tea and coffee in the house prepared for this. Usually tray-bakes and biscuits, that sort of thing, maybe scones.

I've seen on American films tables piled with wrapped up presents at weddings, but I just thought that was a hollywood thing, to represent the gifts for whatever reason, rather than cutting to a random shot in the house of lots of crockery etc.

To me it makes more sense, you can have the craic with everyone more personally, you can open the present and thank them for it to their face, and it's not just "oooh! pile of presents on a table all for ME!!! ahem* us."

What's normal for you?

Gift table at the reception. With the large number of out-of-town guests many people have, I really don't see anything else being very practical. I'm already asking people to come clear across the country (in some cases) to celebrate my wedding with me, so I'm sure as heck not expecting them to personally deliver a gift to my doorstep. The purpose of the gift table is not so that the bride and groom can "ooh" and "aah" over how many gifts they're getting, and it's very strange to me that anyone would choose to interpret it that way. It's simply for the sake of convenience. Maybe in the scenario you're describing, inviting out-of-town wedding guests is not very common?

Mostly at the wedding. If it was something off our registry, then the store would notify me and I could pick it up there.

The last couple of weeks before my wedding was so hectic. I was working 12 hour shifts and trying to get all the little details finalized, going over numerous checklists, and trying to squeeze a decent amount of sleep in there. My house was a mess. I had favours on the table and papers everywhere and dirty dishes in the kitchen. I can't imagine having dozens of people "drop in" for a chat and a tea and worry about having everything company-ready and having food on hand to feed them! I can see how that would be nice if the bride still lived with her parents, but not when she is living on her own trying to plan a wedding around a full-time job.

I bring or send a gift to the shower. I bring a greeting card with a check or gift card to the wedding. I do not like to carry a gift to the wedding because we sometimes travel to the wedding and I have enough to carry on the trip already what with luggage, camera, etc.

kk~

Normally I give a gift from the couple's registry for the shower. Then for the wedding I'll often choose something from the registry and have the store gift wrap and ship it to the address the couple have listed with the registry. Other times I'll just give a check in a card. There is always a basket for these envelopes at the wedding. Many weddings I've attended don't have a gift table, as the gifts have been delivered ahead of time so as not to give the bridal couple more things to contend with on their wedding day. Some weddings do have gift tables. In that case either the bride's or the groom's family will often transport the gifts home from the wedding for them.

As far as I can see, these days it totally depends on whatever is practical. You're driving in and you're staying with the bride at her home the night before the wedding? Unpack it and see if it should be added to a pile or if you should take it along the next day. You're flying in and it's heavy? Send it to the bride's or groom's home via UPS ahead of time. Ask which destination is more practical. Really, in this day and age of far-flung guests from across the nation (or international!) the only thing to do is to contact the family and ask about their plan.

I'm Canadian and have always brough the gift to the wedding and placed in on the gift table.

When I got married, there was a table for gifts and my parents and sister packed them up and took them back to her place for us to open the next day. Some people turned up at my sister's house the next day to give us their gifts. Some people who bought off the register decided to have the gifts delivered so just after we got back from the honeymoon, we had a delivery of a heaps more things. We had to leave most of our wedding presents that were given to us at the wedding or the day after with my sister and my in-laws for six months as we were living interstate and had flown up for the wedding and wouldn't have the ability to transport them back until Christmas.

Helen

Yeah, Ireland's pretty small, my brothers cycled from one end to the other in 5 days on pushbikes. "Out of town" isn't an issue for many.

mirrim, it's just factored in to plans for weddings here, it's part and parcel of the celebration.

What exactly is a wedding shower? I know it's an American tradition, something to do with more presents, but I don't get why you do it.

A wedding shower is for small, practical gifts. It's especially useful when the bride and groom haven't been living away from home for very long (or ever!) and need everything: measuring cups, measuring spoons, plastic storage containers, broom, dust mop, shower curtain, bath mat, first aid supplies, and on and on.

How very odd, those are what I would consider wedding gifts. Everything.

So basically a wedding shower is the same as how I said wedding presents are given here. Except it's another date, for another party, it is a party, right? And you get a present at your shower, and another present at your wedding?!

For me, the wedding shower was a chance to have a small, intimate celebration with my closest female friends and relatives. My sister put it together for me, and she asked everyone attending to write down a few words describing how they met me, sharing a memory they had of me, or offering words of advice for my married life. We read some of these out loud during the shower and had them displayed on a table for everyone to read. They were very touching and meant a lot more to me than any of the gifts I received.

One of my close friends had a shower in which guests were asked to bring a favorite recipe on a card to share with the bride. A recipe box was provided to hold all of the recipe cards, and my friend said that they came in very handy when she was learning to cook for herself and her new husband. I chose not to go that route because Mark and I have already been living together for five years, but I think it's a nice idea.

It's also popular to have games at bridal showers, but I don't know many people who are too fond of these, so I opted not to have any.

So my point is that the shower can be whatever you want it to be, and I think it's a really nice opportunity to get a group of women who are very special to you together (some people include men as well) to commemorate this special time in your life. I think it's really sad that a lot of people who are not familiar with the custom seem to have decided that it's yet another example of "American greed" or that it's tacky or just an excuse to demand more gifts or whatever. I'm not going to lie - Mark and I did get some really lovely gifts at our shower, many of which we are already enjoying using. But what was really special to me was how genuinely excited everyone at my shower was to be celebrating with me. It was really lovely and touching, and I'll have the memories from that day long after our new slow cooker stops working.

EDIT: The other thing I want to point out is that traditionally the bride's maid of honor and/or bridesmaids plan the shower, although other close friends or relatives are often involved as well. But the bride does not plan it for herself. So ideally, it's the bride's closest friends and relatives getting together and saying, "You know, we're really happy and excited for Bride-to-Be, so let's do this for her," not the bride saying, "MOAR GIFTS FOR MEEEEEE!!!" And yes, I'm well aware that there are situations in which bridesmaids are begrudgingly putting together a shower for a bridezilla who doesn't deserve it, or where the bride is basically spearheading the whole thing herself, and I would agree that that IS tacky.

No, I think because America came from lots of different places, it's merged all the different traditions into new ones. I think our idea of getting the gifts for the wedding has merged with some other culture's idea of a pre-wedding celebration. It's just that gifts became the norm and now it's seen that way because it's seen as rude to not provide a gift of some sort. If that makes sense.

I don't think any of these traditions can ever just spring from nothing. I just know that they evolve. I think the idea of bringing it to the home before the wedding is because it's always been most convenient, and allows exactly what you've said your shower was, intimate celebrations.

Incidentally, most families don't entertain the idea of someone landing at their door the night before the wedding. That's plain rude. For my sister's, because so many family were from over an hour away, mum held a bbq the week before, which worked quite well, meant she needed more food, but less tray-bakes.

Emma wrote:

And you get a present at your shower, and another present at your wedding?!

Yes, though I'm not sure that it adds up to more in $-amount of "stuff". Depending on the couple's needs and situation, the official wedding present could be something like a spoon from their silverware pattern at the registry. In other words something more permanent. Whereas the shower gift could be something like a set of cleaning sponges and cloths plus detergent. It would get used up quickly as soon as the couple moved into their first home.

I always thought a wedding shower was part of the whole bachelorette party thing. The bridal showers I've seen on TV were about the bride's 'maids giving her sexy underwear and body chocolate, not bath mats. Damn you television, why aren't you truthful?!

In all honesty I've never bought someone a wedding present. If I went to weddings when I was little, which I rarely did, then the parents were in charge of that and I don't recall. For the very few weddings I've been to as an adult, I've put money in a card and taken it on the day. At the most recent wedding I went to, they had a honeymoon-based "gift list" where you put towards excursions etc. It was kind of like those charity donation breakdowns you get - "£5 feeds a child for a week, £10 keeps a school running for a month" or whatever, only theirs was "£200 buys groom more leg room, £50 buys us a snorkelling trip". Tim was in charge of that so I have no idea what we got them!

^There is such a thing as a lingerie shower. My sister had one, except I think they called it a "personal shower." Considering that almost everyone in attendance was from her church, and considering that it was MY SISTER, it was perhaps the most awkward bridal shower experience I've ever had. But in my sister's case, she was living with my parents until she got married, and because of the very conservative religion we were a part of at the time, it was understood that she was a virgin, so it was assumed that she did not own any lingerie and would therefore "need" it in her new role as a wife. *vomit* Whereas Mark and I have been living in sin for so long that I assume everyone thinks I have bustiers and teddies out the wazoo by now. I don't, by the way, but I think I would die of embarrassment if a bunch of middle aged women wanted to buy them for me and then sit around in a circle and watch me hold them up for everyone to see and crack jokes about which "outfits" I would be wearing on my honeymoon.

I don't know a man that gives a crap about sexy (or even matching!) lingerie to be honest. It's only going on the floor, so...

Over here, showers aren't really done at all, for any occasion. People are starting to have baby showers but they're not common by any means. I also get the feeling it's more acceptable to ask for/hint at having money or vouchers instead of a gift. It's not the "done thing" but it is very widespread. I don't know a single couple (younger than about 60) that didn't live together when they got married. I think the whole notion of having stuff to set you up in your house is a bit outdated, as most couples have already btdt.

We had a gift table at our wedding. However, in hindsight, it didn't turn out well. A couple of gifts (not too sure of the actual amount of them) "walked off" that night. We had hotel security on site at all times, and we didn't have anyone who wasn't invited there. There were only about 120 guests total, and to this day we have no idea what happened to them. But a few of our gifts didn't make it to the house.

I don't think showers are an example of greed, necessarily. Often family lives far apart and having a shower can be an opportunity for some to participate in the wedding festivities who cannot attend the wedding. I've been to showers where I could not go to the wedding and was grateful they planned the shower or I would not have been able to celebrate with them at all.

This one neice had a destination wedding. The shower was in her home town, the engagement party was in the groom's hometown. So, more people were able to celebrate with the couple.

We have shower games. My favorites are the making of a wedding dress out of toilet paper and purse bingo. Lot's of fun! Most of the showers I've been to in recent years were lingerie showers or kitchen showers. I bring the same thing to all kitchen showers - a basket or bucket filled with dish soap, a scrubber, hand towel, pot holder, etc. Lingerie showers get a suggestive gag gift because I'm not comfortable picking out lingerie for my young relatives and friends. I see lots of gag gifts at lingerie showers.

At the wedding, it's a card with cash, check or gift card enclosed. I drove 800 miles, one way, to the last wedding and the last thing I wanted to do was haul along a pretty wrapped gift that would get messed up in traveling. They did have a gift table. And I sometimes hear of breakfasts the next morning when the couple opens the gifts in front of family and friends. (Most couples no longer leave for the honeymoon from the reception, they leave a day or two later.) But like someone ^ said, I've also heard of gifts and cards disappearing at weddings, so someone is usually in charge of 'guarding' the gifts and cards. Sad. We suspect at one wedding it was a hotel employee.

The reason the wedding weekend is so full of activities is not to have more opportunities to rake in presents, it's to entertain the guests who have traveled far. It would be rude to leave them on their own, except for the wedding ceremony and reception. So, there is a rehearsal dinner, a girl's luncheon, a guy's golf game, the ceremony, the reception, the morning after breakfast, etc. I usually get a gift and welcome card from the couple when I check into the hotel. A nice little personal touch! Time before last, it was a gift bag with some homemade cookies, other snacks and a few clothes hangers that a grandmother used to make (and were prized family possessions).

kk~