My mom and I went to my cousin's shower on saturday and were shocked at some of the things that happened. We ended up leaving with a list of things we make sure we do/do no do for my shower. Over all, her shower was cramped, loud and obnoxious. Much of that was due to my aunt's crazy sister who was yelling and shouting the whole time, but the over all experience was crappy. I thought I would share some of the tidbits we jotted down, for anyone else's future use.
1) Have one table for gifts when they are brought in, and one for when they are opened - We noticed that once my cousin opened the gifts, she had nowhere to put them and ended up just passing them to whoever would take them.
2) Keep games to a minimum - Personally, I hate games and we agreed not to do any for my shower. But at my cousin's shower, people were only half paying attention and after 2 games they were not even interested. She had 5 planned and only did 4, but even that was a lot.
3) Attention getters - If you can't whistle, get something to get people's attention. There was an awkward starting point where someone was waving her arms and saying "excuse me" and no one was listening. It often took a few minute for people to realize that someone was trying to make an announcement about gifts/starting/lunch/etc.
4) Assign jobs - I know, this is frowned upon on TK. But at this shower, there were so many women fluttering around trying to "help" that no one was actually helping! Know who is taking what for you and who should have their butt in a chair. My cousin looked overwhelmed by how many times her mom, BMs or other relatives were in her way trying to "help."
5) Make sure the venue has a clear aisle - We noticed as soon as the food was being served, the waitress had a hard time getting around because of all the women everywhere, gifts in the way and poor seating arrangement. Make sure there is a clear path for people to get where they need to go.
Those are just some things I thought I would pass along. Everyone's families are different so some of these things may not be an issue but we felt like this was plain chaos!