Dear Prudence,
My sister is getting married early next spring, and we’ll be planning a shower for her after the holidays. She’s been hinting that she would like a surprise bridal shower, which is a tradition in our extended family.
fiancé comes from a culture where start times are considered general guidelines. They usually show up somewhere between 15 minutes and two hours late for events. This isn’t usually a problem, but it might make things tricky for a surprise party. It will kind of spoil the surprise if the groom’s cousins are walking in at the same time as my sister.
I’ve considered telling them that the party will start at the time that my sister is expected to arrive, and then they’ll all trickle in after the rest of us have surprised her, but that feels a little rude. The other option I’ve thought of is to enlist my brother-in-law-to-be to try to get everyone here on time, but that seems like a big ask and probably won’t work with anyone outside of his immediate family. Would it be OK to give his family a later start time than my sister’s friends and our extended family? Should we rethink the surprise party? Is there another option that I’m not considering?