Bridal Shower Question
 

I am the maid of honour for my best friend's wedding this September. There are 3 of in her bridal party, and the 2 other bridesmaids are helping me co-host her shower. All three of us are on a tight budget and the shower will take place at my house.

My question is, are favours for the guests necessary?? I have never been to a bridal shower where I was given a gift/favour for attending. I personally hate favours and I hate stupid little trinkets. I think they are a waste of money.

I don't want to waste money on favours, but I really don't want to pi$$ anyone off if I don't have them, but how can keep the cost down for favours?

I don't have a theme for the shower. Our plan was to keep it along the same lines as the wedding. Her colours are black, white and silver and a classic car theme (both bride and groom are classic car nuts and the groom is a mechanic).

Any ideas??? Do I really need to get favours??

What about edible favors? Those dont typically cost much. You could make chocolate lollipops or cookies shaped like car with icing in one of their colors? I dont know if bridal shower favors are necessary but I think its nice to thank the guests and I hate trinkets as well so for my bridal shower in a few weeks my BMs decided to go the edible favor route and are making these:

http://www.marthastewart.com/sugar-cookie-cakes

No, favors are not necessary for a shower. Honestly no one is going to care or notice whether you have them or not.

ETA-As long as the shower is fun, people have good times and good food, they'll remember the bride opening gifts, laughing and all of the other silly old wives tales that happen at showers.

I don't think they're really a must for a shower.

Unless they're really beautiful and I can tell that someone took a long time to make them, I toss em in the garbage once I get home.

I agree with everyone on edible favors.

I agree on the edible/otherwise consumable favors.

For my shower, we're doing small jar candles in the wedding colors. For the wedding, the favor will involve chocolate.

You can get jar candles really inexpensive at like Walmart. I think they have small jar candles for $1. You could dress them up with ribbon, a label, or something else. Inexpensive, and something that can be used.

I am not a fan of little trinkets that sit around collecting dust. I'm also not a fan of random mini picture frames. They're usually not that nice, and don't match anything that I already have, so they end up becoming junk.

Do the edible favors. If you can't do the cookies without breaking the bank (I've seen cookies go for over $5 each!), go to a craft store which sells candy supplies. Pick out a mold and some chocolate. Seriously, you can make some very pretty or at least apropos candies in half an hour, for less than 50 cents each (counting the wrap), and they're practically foolproof. The one secret is to have several bowls to microwave the chocolate - if even the tiniest bit of water is in the bowl, it will ruin the batch.

One pretty one I was given was a rosebud lollipop. It was minty chocolate, but pink, and the stick was green. There was a clear wrap over the rosebud, and the green twist ties had a leaf on each one. That's when I asked about the costs, and I now make a lot of my own chocolates for events.

Seriously, is it hard to make those? I saw really cool molds for seashells and other underwater stuff that would totally go with our recruitment theme. I just don't want to kill myself making that many chocolates if it's super hard.

We did this as an Alumnae Association project every year (making candy). You buy the chocolate disks in the flavors & colors you want, microwave them, pour the chocolate into the mold, let it cool, and pop them out. VERY easy! Figure on about 2-3 minutes to melt the chocolate (it's actually a shorter time, but you do keep checking it), another 5 minutes to fill the mold, but depending on the mold, you could wait up to a half hour for them to cool.

As I said, the one problem is if you decide to wash the bowl and there's still some water in it - messes up the chocolate. But now, there's even little cardboard boxes in which you can melt the chocolate, so you don't have that problem. Lately, I've been melting the chocolate in the decorator bottles, but that's because I've been using it to decorate cookies. That takes a bit more effort, but it's worth it.

I still don't know where they found the green lollipop sticks, though. I imagine that there's a type of tint or spray that doesn't mess up your hands but is still edible, though.

I agree with others that edible food is a good option. I don't generally go to a bridal shower expecting to get something. A few years back when one of my friends was a MOH, she gave us a couple of those travel size lotions from Bath and Body works. We just traded to get the scents we wanted from each other. And then she made cookies for the bags.
Most of the time when I get stuff, I end up chucking it.

I will agree that the chocolates are really easy to do. We make them for Christmas and Easter for my kids to give to friends as little gifts. You can also do a larger quantity at once if you melt them in a fondue pot and use little ladles to pour them. I either do that, or use the decorator bottles, but the bottles are hard to clean afterward and the dog likes to hunt them down and chew on them since they smell like chocolate. Now that the kids are older, they paint in details with different color chocolate melts so they are getting more sophisticated with it.

New question-what the h is a subscription bridal shower? I just got the invite today! Thank God for GC!

A WHAT???

And I veto all favors and games at showers. Have good food, maybe some flowers or a cute centerpiece, use real china and enjoy mixing, mingling and watching the bride open her gifts.

a subscription bridal shower?

Hmmm

Maybe instead of a gift the bride wants a 2-yr subscription to Better Homes & Gardens? :p

That's all that I can think of...the slip of paper in the invite said "Subscription Shower or Gift Cards from ... and ..."

It's one thing to say someone is registered at wherever, it's another thing to outright ask for gift cards. Tacky.

OK, when I searched under "subscription shower" the 5th thing that came up was "gay porn used jockstrap" - LOL. So I put "bridal" in. This is what I got.

http://www.saledaddy.com/email_september-06_34.htm

I forgot to update this. A subscription shower is another name for greenback. (?sp)

So they were asking for MONEY and gift cards?

The ONLY time it's proper to ask for $$ is when the bride and groom will be traveling a lot (i.e. in the military) and it would be a PITA to lug many presents around. Other than that, TACKY!! I think I would have given them an actual subscription to "Bird Talk" or something of the like.

haha! i would do something like that too...if only there was some sort of way to register without insulting people all around...i will say this much, i got a ton of gift cards when i had my daughter last year because my sister and girlfriend "casually mentioned" them in conversations lol! it was exactly what i needed and nobody was insulted! worked for my cousin too when she got married. anytime someone mentioned not having a clue what to get her, i would say "oh, well we are getting her a gift card. i know she had mentioned they have a lot of stuff already, and most of the registry has been purchased..."

Registering isn't tacky.
Including the cards in invitations is. That's what friends and family are for -

Guest (calling hostess) - I'm calling to say I will be at Betty's shower. Where is she registered?

Hostess - She's registered at Bed,Bath and Beyond and Macy's. I'm so glad you will be able to come!


How hard was that???:)

No. It was a either/or kind of thing. The bride flew in to her shower, so all gifts would have to be mailed back or packed, and with today's airline fees, it basically could have cost too much to receive the gifts. I understand her Mom's point.

I really do not understand why STORES contribute to tackiness by giving out those cards that say "so and so are registered at BB&B!" When we registered I told the lady straight up "It's poor etiquette to put those in an invitation. You don't invite people and assume they are bringing a gift" She didn't get it...:rolleyes:

i totally agree...i guess the conflict comes in when you figure out HOW to tell people lol...that wedding website idea is looking better and better :rolleyes:

I don't have a problem with the registration information being in a shower invitation because the whole purpose of a shower is to "shower" the bride to be with gifts. The wedding invitation, now that's different.

For my friend's shower, we (the bridesmaids and I) put the the little card in the invite for the shower, but it would never go in the actual wedding invitation.

As for the wedding website, I do have one. Mr. Pi Phi and I are having a destination wedding, so I thought it was the easiest way to get out all the travel information and country information and any other details that people might need. We sent out save the dates with the web address.

It's really handy and I know our guests have appreciated having all the information in one place.

oh my god me too...when my sister threw my baby shower i was the same way...PLEASE no dumb azz party games! of course, i didnt get a say, but im with you KSU, lets eat, open gifts, and celebrate!