Post Wedding Shower Blues

Q: Recently I was invited to a wedding shower. I brought a small gift- reserving a larger gift for the wedding - but lo, I was not invited to the wedding itself! Is this common practice?

A: Unfortunately the answer to this question is yes, it is becoming more common practice. Along with our sad ideas that marriage is just something you are expected to do when you are ready to have sex - or is really just a big party - and is not really a sacred union (a view I do not agree with) many young couples find that the wedding itself is really just a big party. While it is true that the wedding reception really is just a big party - the wedding itself and marriage in general are a very sacred bond and commitment between two people. Many young girls grow up with dreams of their wedding; their dress, their hair, their cake and groom have all been playing through their minds since they were small children. This has also created the phenomenon we call "bridezillas" - a bride that cannot accept anything that isn't perfect in their wedding and will alienate everyone around her to achieve this perfection. I think part of the reason the divorce rate is so high is because too often young women are focused on the fact that they "get to get married and have the party" rather than the long-term relationship "contract" that marriage is. Because of this many couples focus more on how they can get more presents instead of how to celebrate with their guests. While some people find this acceptable as a more "modern" type of wedding I think traditional/old fashioned etiquette is more than appropriate.

The reception is a celebration of the wedding itself. If your reception area holds fewer people than your ceremony location then only invite enough people for the reception hall. It is discourteous and plain rude to invite someone to the wedding that isn't invited to the party after. The bridal shower or bachelorette party is for the bride and her closest friends to celebrate her choice to embrace marriage. If you are inviting your friend to your shower then you consider them a close friend - so why wouldn't you invite them to the wedding? The only explanations I can come up with is either you made this bride very angry between the shower and when the wedding invitations went out, or this bride felt you are a close friend but replaced you with someone who might give a better gift. For etiquette sake you should have your shower about 4 weeks before the wedding as a way to calm down from wedding plans but get some fun in with your friends. Since the invitations are supposed to be mailed 6-7 weeks before the wedding they should already have been sent before the shower.

My advice for you is this: if your friend chose someone else over you then you really don't need this person as a friend - there is NO excuse for inviting someone to the shower and not the wedding, or at least the reception after. If her new husband chose someone else over you then you must prepare yourself now for a very hard friendship on the road ahead; if he is controlling her this much now imagine how much worse it will be later. You need to be prepared to be a very, VERY good friend who she can count on for a shoulder to cry on. If you made your friend angry then now is the time to find out what you did or said. It could be someone else is poisoning your friend against you or some simple misunderstanding. Either way it is better to make up now than wait years and continuing to resent your friend for something you did.