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Pre-wedding Parties
knottie680e653c84c3cd3f
member
large bridal shower - open all presents?
I am having a rather large bridal shower 70+ in attendance. Do I open all the gifts at the shower? I feel like this would take up so much time and if roles were reversed, I would not want to watch someone open all those gifts. But then it would be rude to not open all of them... Need opinions!!
Re: large bridal shower - open all presents?
Open all gifts swiftly but graciously.
I would hope that the BP work in an assembly line so it moves quickly.
I'm pretty sure large families aren't new.
Ask the host(s) to have an efficient system for keeping things moving. Have all the gifts within close proximity to you so no one is running back and forth to get stuff. Ask someone to hand you the next gift - maybe even locating the card and giving you that first so you aren't spending time searching through bags with tissue and such. Someone can also sit next to you to manage paper/ribbons/waste. And, of course, have someone recording who gave you what in case cards get separated. You'll have a lot of TY notes to write.
Before things start, scan the room so you know, generally, where people are sitting. To be efficient about opening stuff, open the card first, state who the gift is from, quickly open it, smile and hold it up for people to see, make eye contact with the giver and say "thank you, so-and-so name" and move on. By saying who it's from twice, the person writing down the gifts won't have to stop the process to clarify who gave it to you. These things will help the process move along quickly.
Then someone is next to the guest of honor writing it all down in a notebook and next to the writer is another friend/family member who helps to move the opened gift to secondary placement area for easy car loading.
@knottie680e653c84c3cd3f one word of advice is going to be to either travel with a large car (like a mini van with seats removed) or arrange for a few friends to help you transport the gifts. Ideally some people will go in one one gift (I won't buy a Vitamix buy myself but it's an awesome group gift) but you'll still probably have a lot that need to get to some location where they can be stored until the wedding.
1) the bride/couple needs a good team helping move the gifts along- one or two passing gifts to the partial opener, a partial opener pretty much getting the gift open, the bride/couple then finish opening and call out a thank you to the gift giver, the secretary (my family’s term) has a sticky label with the gift giver’s name ready to stick on the gift, then one or two people receiving the opened, labeled gifts and piling them. Goes really fast that way.
2) don’t make the gift opening mandatory viewing. In my circle, at showers where I’m not super close to the bride (^so not part of that assembly line I described above), I just eat and drink wine and chat and when I hear a “thanks Eileen!” I turn to the bride and give a wave. No one really watches the whole thing, that’d be boring. Try to get whoever is hosting to not do bridal shower bingo or anything that would pressure guests to watch. The nosy bodies will have their eyes glued on the bride but everyone else should just be able to enjoy themselves and just tune in when they’re acknowledged.