Bridal Shower - What do I expect? Is it weird to feel uncomfortable?

laurenes

Hello! I'm new to this particular board. I appreciate everyone's time and input to what may be a weird and long post.

Due to family members living far away and being the first of my friends to get married, I have never attended a bridal shower. My mother and sister (MOH) are planning on throwing a bridal shower for my in early April.  They plan on inviting woman from the neighborhood (where I grew up for 15 years and they have known me since kindergarten), a few other family friends from around town, the female members of mine and FI's family, and presumably a few of my friends.

I am having some reservations about this. FI and I have been living together for close to two years now, and I'm already very domestic and have items like a nice crock pot, kitchenaid mix master, etc as well as a full setting of silver that my grandmother gave me - the items people normally register for. We managed to scrounge up a decent registry of stuff we didn't have, china, and things we wanted to upgrade on (since we have a few crappy college make-do items), but my mother pointed out that this was not going to be enough of a registry for both a shower and a wedding (heck, it's barely large enough for a wedding at this point). I already feel weird asking friends and family to buy me expensive items from a wish list, and extending this even further makes my stomach churn. Not to mention that since FI is already back in school and I'll be back in as soon as he finishs, a house is not exactly in the near future, so I'm not sure what we'll do with enough items to fill a house rather than our two bedroom apartment w/ a tiny kitchen.

I get the impression from bridal showers that it's just essentially a party designed to get a whole bunch of gifts. Since we've already "set-up house" I feel like this is not entirely necessary, and possibly even in poor taste. When I mentioned to my mother that I wasn't sure if I was entirely sure I felt comfortable with any shower, she pointed out that my grandmother was EXTREMELY excited about the shower since she didn't make it up for my graduation (which was mostly my mom's doing anyway, since she didn't want her there, but fine...) and that my grandmother would be extremely disappointed if we called it off, as she feels like she's being cut out of family activities.

I know that my mother and sister are planning a tasteful, low key finger foods and desserts shower at my parents (lovely) house/my childhood home. For people who have had showers, is it going to be as awkward as I feel it will be to have a party specifically for getting my a bunch of presents? Especially considering we already live together? Or has everyone found these things to be really fun and I shouldn't be worried?

Thanks for your help!

DanielleZZ

IAs long as you have a wide range of prices on your registry then don't worry about "asking" for expensive things, guests will spend what they can/want to.  The point of a shower is to get gifts and guest know this so don't feel weird about that.  As long as you are not throwing your own shower (which it doesn't seem like you are) than you will not come across as asking for too much.  I also had been living with my FI for over 3 years by the time of my shower, we registered for upgrades of our stuff.  A lot of people went in on bigger items together.  I don't know if this helped but good luck : )

glam70s

I can completely sympathize with the entire situation. I am also extremely uncomfortable with the registry thing and only gave in and created a small registry under significant pressure. Now we're being pressured to expand our registry because my FMIL is hosting a shower that I asked her not to host. ALL of the things that we do need for the house are well over the $150 mark (that's why we haven't already purchased them), and I'm not about to fill my registry with very expensive items.

I also feel like showers are borderline in poor taste, tradition or not. I can't offer a lot of advice since I've done poorly at avoiding them myself, but I can tell you that I feel the same way you do..

elizabeth+jim

Don't feel like all of your registry items have to be the "regular" items. We ended up registering for DVDs, cookbooks and board games to start because I already have most of the "regular" stuff.  They're pretty cheap and we figure we'll get more use out of them than another set of dishes.  We looked into registering at Home Depot too, but we have most of the tools we need for apartment living. 
We did end up coming up with more "regular" items. We realized that we like entertaining and ended up with more plates, some serving items, that sort of thing. 

kellystd

We registered (ie provided a link to the donation page) for the American Cancer Society so people can make donations. My FI's mom died of cancer eight years ago so it's one way of making her part of the day, but it also helps with the uncomfortable gift idea. Another suggestion is to have people register for things for your honeymoon. We're not doing it but our travel agent said that she can take donations from guests and apply it to the cost of the honeymoon.

seniah

Its totally ok to feel uncomfortable - I did too.  DH and I had been living together prior to our wedding and we'd both been on our own long before that.  We upgraded some items, got complete sets of others (ie variious sized pots and pans we didn't have, a wok, belgian waffle maker, potato masher, new spatulas, etc).  We also registered for other household items - big huge blanket-y bath towels, really good flannel sheets, extra kithcen towls).  

There's also storage bins of a variety of shapes and sizes. I hghly recommend stoarge bins.  I kick myself for not thinking of that when we got married. Also you can register for a small household tool kit, sewing kits, a first aid kit. 

Do you and your fiance have hobbies?  My DH and I are big campers but a lot of our stuff was hand me down, old, beat up and more in line with solo camper.  We registered for replacements for that stuff and some additional items we could use. 
Do you like to have people over?  Odds and ends for that would be great - serving dishes and horderve trays and specialty glasses are options.  As well as martini shaker, wine aerator, wine charms, fancy drink stirrers and toothpicks, etc.  Not to mention dressier tablecloth, napkins, pot holders, etc.

Other items can be shelving units, decorative shelves picture frame/albums, a storage bench (exta seating and extra storage woo!), knick knacks, Christmas ornaments from Hallmark, a new alarm clock radio, DVDs, Cds, a DVD/CD rack, books, cookbooks, bookshelves, microwave cart, mobile kitchen island cart, and so on.  And anytime you think - gosh I wish we had a "fill in item here" add it to your registry.