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Wedding Etiquette Forum
kahluakoala
member
WWYD: Gifts before the shower
My bridal shower is in 6 weeks (yay!) and my mom just sent out invitations. Gifts have just started to arrive and I'm wondering what to do with them. My shower is about 6 hours from where I live (in the town my mom and most of my family live), so I'll be driving in for the weekend in my small sedan. I'm already going to struggle to get the gifts home and might have to make a second trip a few months later depending. So for these gifts that arrive to my house, it seems super silly to transport them just to open them in front of everyone. The few boxes that have arrived already are HUGE. I know BBB is big on over-packaging, but I am expecing things like new stemware, serving platters, etc. so I am expecting some physically large items.
I was thinking what I'll do is open it now, send a thank you card, and then at my shower have a list of already received gifts that I'll read out, like, "I also want to thank aunt Mary for the crock pot, aunt Joan for the towels, etc".
Thoughts? WWYD?
I was thinking what I'll do is open it now, send a thank you card, and then at my shower have a list of already received gifts that I'll read out, like, "I also want to thank aunt Mary for the crock pot, aunt Joan for the towels, etc".
Thoughts? WWYD?
Re: WWYD: Gifts before the shower
I also think its fine to wait and send the thank you’s all at once if you want. I was in a similar situation and a few people sent gifts to my house then brought something small to the shower.
Just a reminder that if you use any of the gifts before the wedding, and gods forbid something happens and the wedding doesn’t happen, you need to return the gifts. That’s why many etiquette sites will say not to use them (or even open them) before the wedding.
I was kind of hoping this is the case! though I guess I can still get a head start writing them, and you're right that people may split gifts. I'm just worried that people didn't realize that the gifts got sent to my house since I have my default address on the registry set (and people don't see the address when they ship) and might have been expecting them to be shipped to my mom. I guess I'm overthinking it! I suppose I'll just thank the giver at the shower verbally when I greet them/chat with them.
With 6 weeks to go to the shower, waiting to send thank you notes is a stretch. If it were 1-2 weeks, ok, but you wouldn't wait 6 weeks to send a thank you in any other circumstances, so it doesn't make much sense here. Plus, if people really didn't intend to ship directly to you, receiving a prompt thank you will alert them to what happened, so they aren't calling customer service looking for missing packages.
The invites JUST went out so I assume someone got the invite, decided to come, and then just went right away and ordered their gift. I was thinking I could text them a "hey I got your gift, thanks so much!" and then do a thank you note after the shower with everyone else or I could do it now-ish (I think at this point it'll end up waiting until after Christmas given I'm travelling soon, but I assume that's ok). There's just soooo much mail happening right now since we did christmas cards for the first time ever (as a result of having collected a million addresses) and our invitations are slated to go out mid-January (and were recently ordered) so I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.
oh, I agree about sending TYs now - I glossed over the part that the shower is 6 weeks away. Send thank you's now for sure. Also - these could be people who got the invite and cannot come to the shower so sent a gift right away. If it's only a couple people, seriously just write the thank you's now and get them out.
Definitely don't transport those gifts to the shower. I'm assuming those guests sent them to your home instead of bringing them to the shower because they are thinking ahead and smart cookies
! Trying to make your life easier, especially for larger packages.
Because it is 6 weeks until your shower, I agree that the ty notes should be sent out promptly instead of waiting until the shower.
For anyone who sent a gift ahead of time and is at the shower, I would verbally thank them also when I greeted them. But wouldn't make an announcement during the present openings.
Enjoy your shower!
I definitely wouldn’t drive the gifts in to open in front of everyone. And I’d send thank you’s as I received gifts.
The gift was nice new whiskey glasses and my FI was pretty pumped. He was like "I'm so excited for your shower!" haha.
You know, I knew I'd seen this before and I think you're right - at baby showers it' s usually done this way. I'll check with my mom to see what she thinks. IIRC we're from a similar region so our shower norms are likely pretty similar.