La Alaskeña

It would seem that in the United States, before one can enter into the ordeal joyous institution of marriage, one must bear another ordeal: the bridal shower.

Apparently the bridal shower is a mostly North American phenomenon, so for my readers elsewhere, here’s a quick explanation: the bride-to-be is given a party, usually by the maid of honor or a female family member, and is lavished with gifts, usually items for her new home or lingerie. Sounds good for the bride right? But for the attendees, it is pure, straight torture.

I know that sounds callous. Perhaps I’m bitter because nobody’s ever thrown me a bridal shower. But let me elucidate. At these showers, they make you play games, and I don’t mean fun games like Scrabble or strip poker. Here’s a short list of the games I’ve been forced to play at showers.

•Nobody is allowed to speak the bride’s name. If you do, bad things will happen to you.

•Nobody is allowed to say the word “wedding”. If you do, they lock you in a closet.

•Everybody has to sniff unlabeled kitchen items like baking soda and cinnamon and write down their guesses as to what they are. If you get the most answers right, you win a small bottle of cheap-smelling lotion!

•You can’t cross your legs during the whole party. If you do, more bad things happen! Like, you lose your shot at that cheap-smelling bottle of lotion.

•Humiliate the bride! Ask her questions about her future husband. If she gets them wrong, stuff a marshmallow in her mouth. She’s not allowed to swallow. She might choke, but c’mon, it’s all in good fun.

Except it’s not fun. It’s never fun. I have never once played a fun bridal shower game. It’s like people plan these things to be boring and dull on purpose. Watching a girl open package after package of Pyrex dishes, regardless of how much you adore her, gets boring after about three seconds. As in, before she’s even got the wrapping off the first one.

In short, I despise bridal showers and avoid them like the plague. I mean, I’d rather get a pap smear than go to a bridal shower. BUT tonight I decided to make an exception, because I was invited to the shower of a very sweet girl who is marrying her long-time boyfriend. I think the world of both of them, and I’m thrilled to bits that they’re getting married.

I arrived late and thus avoided the inevitable awkward introductions, and soon the bride was opening my gift, a banana tree, complete with organic bananas. No joke, the room erupted in cheers and applause. If I had known that bananas would get that kind of response, I’d have walked in wearing something like this:

I might have gotten a standing ovation. After the bride opened my gift, the bride’s sister announced that we were dividing into teams to play a game.

“This will be fun, I promise,” she said. I took that as my cue to leave. They always say that, and it’s never true.

So I’d like to know, what are some bridal traditions from other countries? Or perhaps similarly onerous social occasions? Is it just in America that we can’t seem to make bridal showers fun?

Lastly, I would like to give a piece of advice to anybody planning a bridal shower. The key to a fun bridal shower is good food and gossip. That’s it. AND NO GAMES!