Dear Brides-to-be:

(And their families/friends).  Here’s the thing.  I hate wedding showers.  I will not have one and I will not go to yours.  To all my fellow 20-somethings, I encourage you to join me in my revolution against wedding showers.  I’ll lay out my reasons below.

There are many, many things I hate about the Wedding Industrial Complex, (engagement rings, ridiculously ornate invitations, parties that cost more than the GDP of third world countries, horrid bridesmaid dresses… I could go on, maybe I will in another post) but wedding showers take the cake.  (Bad wedding pun totally not intended, but I’ll go with it.)  It’s been pointed out to me that I may offend people and potentially lose friends over this hardline stance, but I’m not that worried about it.  If you’re really my friend you’ll understand, and if you’re willing to lose my friendship because I won’t get you a damn blender, then I’m not really losing much of a friend, am I?  And so, I give you…

Reasons Why I will not Go To Wedding Showers

• They’re pretty sexist.  I know that’s not true in some more progressive circles, but for the most part it’s still a burden put on women, even if you’re a friend or family member of the groom.
• They’re rather anachronistic.  Ok, sure, once upon a time, a young couple would go right from living in each one’s respective parent’s house until the day of the wedding and move to their marital home after the wedding, so their community would help them buy the things that they needed.  Nowadays, however, people generally have either lived on their own for a bit before getting married or have been living in their parents house rent-free for a significant chunk of time before getting married, so they either have stuff or can afford to buy stuff.
• They totally suck for people who don’t get married!  In theory if you go to showers and then you have one it should pretty much be a wash.  You have to buy ridiculous presents and then make your friends buy you ridiculous presents.  But what of the people who don’t get married?  Why should they have to foot the bill for your new linens when there’s no reciprocity?
• Wedding shower encourage wasteful consumerism.
• People suddenly get really uppity when they have a wedding shower.  Is there something about getting engaged that makes people feel that they are too good to continue to eat off the IKEA dishware they’ve amassed for the last however many years and now only Lenox is good enough?  And do you anticipate that the condition of being married will take such a toll on your body that only 1500 thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets will do?  You and your fiancé hate cooking, why do you suddenly need a KitchenAid and more gadgets than Martha Stewart?  Furthermore, I’ve been to your apartment, it’s cute, but it’s small, where are you going to PUT all this stuff?
• I refuse to participate in this charade of “It’s a Surprise!”  Really?  You went into a store(s) and used a scanner-gun-thingie to pick out all the gifts you want, you gave someone a list of people to invite and maybe even gave an opinion on where you’d like to eat and now I’m supposed to believe that you’re surprised?  Please.  Gag.
• No one enjoys wedding showers.  Really.  At least, no one I know does.
• They encourage/are fueled by a lot of Keeping Up With the Jones.
• They’re a terribly inefficient means of buying things.  No, hear me out.  The way most showers work is you go to a store, pick out some things, then your friends/family go online, see what you wanted, go to the store and buy things off that list, from that store.  So, it doesn’t matter that the same exact item is on sale at some other store, since your guests are locked into whatever store you’ve chosen.  So that $100 that they’ve committed to spending on your shower gift only gets you 1 place setting, whereas it could have gotten you a place setting and a towel set if it had been purchased elsewhere.  Everyone loses other than the store you registered at.
• It’s another annoying event to plan in what is already usually a fairly stressful series of events.  Should weddings really be so stressful?
• It’s an unfair financial burden on the people you’re supposed to care about.  Honestly, how is it fair to ask me to buy you some ridiculously marked-up stuff that I would never buy for myself?  I live within my means, I suggest you do the same.
• It’s a weird sort of indentured servitude.  You attend them because, well whatever, it’s socially accepted and you plan on having one so you can get all the shiny new things you can’t afford yourself, and then you have one and are happy for a hot minute until you start getting more invites then you ever could possibly anticipate.  Suddenly you’re getting invited to showers for people who you didn’t even consider close friends (or to people whose names you don’t recognize… true story, this happens to my mom multiple times a year) and the madness spirals out of control.  Stop the madness!  Opt out!

So those are my reasons, I invite you to join my revolutionary resistance to wedding showers.  If you’re feeling saucy you can include the following in your “No Thanks” RSVP:

• A link to Craigslist’s Free Stuff in their area
• A list of garage/yard sales in their area
• An article on the joys of minimalist living/perils of consumerism
• This Cathy Cartoon:

I’m hoping that someday soon people will get the hint and stop sending invites my way, but so far, no luck on that front.  I think in the future when I get these invites I’ll go ahead any buy myself whatever gadget I’m currently coveting and that fits within my budget at whatever store currently has it at the lowest price.  Yes, this sounds like a much better plan than spending a Saturday afternoon eating tea sandwiches with people I barely know and watching a bride-t0-be feign surprise as she opens up presents we’ve all already seen in the registry when I’d really rather be watching TV, reading a book, or trying out some crazy new recipe.  Life’s too short.

Stay strong fellow revolutionaries,

AGSC