Something Old, Something New...

You are cordially invited to attend something blue...a bridal shower celebration.

This is a slight deviation from my normal design insights, but its a design and lifestyle confession that I owe not only to myself, but also to the millions of women who are affected by this serious epidemic. Today, I boldly stand in the face of reason and stare down the generations before me to talk about this issue that regularly kills hours and hours of women's valuable time. Today, we will talk about the widespread epidemic known as: "The Wedding Shower". I vividly remember the first wedding shower I ever went to. It was for my cousin's cousin *strike one*, there were kids invited *strike two*, and it was in the middle of a beautiful summer afternoon *strike three*.

The morning of the shower I overheard my mother on the phone say to her sister, "I'm only going 'cause it's an open bar. These damn things are the curse of being female!" At the time, I didn't know what any of that meant, but even at the ripe age of 10, I could deduce that based on my mother's description, I would probably grow up to like my bars open. Plus, if it motivated her to leave the house before the crack of noon on a Sunday, I knew it had to be good. 

Upon my arrival, I scanned the room for the curse of being female. While I couldn't locate it, I did notice all the ladies enjoying orange juice and champagne. My mother, however, went straight for the vodka. Like my mom, I like to live on the edge. So instead of having an apple juice like all the other Sally's, I ordered a 1/2 Shirley Temple, 1/2 coke with a salted rim (to this day an open bar causes me to have a total lapse in drinking judgement and I've been known to go from a mudslide to a Pinot Grigio just simply because I can). Anyway, I wasn't going to let the curse of being female ruin my afternoon, nor was I going to let my first open bar pass me by with a run-of-the-mill apple juice. As I licked the salt off the rim of my Shirley-Coke and ate some of the M&Ms I got as a gift JUST FOR SHOWING UP, I really felt like this was the best day ever! What was my mother's problem?!??!

And then of course....the shower began.

Fast forward a cool 17 years, and now I pretty much go to showers professionally. And rest assured, I have found the curse of being female...and it's called my life.

Back in the day when the wedding shower was invented, the idea was that your grandma and a couple of aunts came over to your mom's house and brought you things that you might've found useful as you entered into domestic bliss. You opened the gifts in front of them because (believe it or not) you didn't know what was inside. It wasn't so you could obsess over your registry, check it daily, and then come shower time, open the gift as though you were surprised to see it. Nice try, doll face... you picked that out two months ago and have been peer pressuring me and our three college roommates into all chipping in for this nine million dollar Calphalon Cookware Set. Oh, and that's right, the only thing you've ever cooked in your life is a bowl of cereal. Drunk.

We need to, as a group, acknowledge that this has gotten a little out of hand. The ship has sailed on the shower front and no one is talking about it. Hell, the ship has sunk and we just keep moving along as though everything's fine. How about we throw the party at night like a normal person so that it's actually fun? No one, and I mean no one, wants to watch you lose your mind over a new wooden spoon. Let's cut the BS and have gifts sent to your house where you already live with your boyfriend...where you'll swap out your old blender you didn't use, for this new state of the art blender, you're also never going to use. 

Let's just end the madness. For the love of God, and the millions of suffering women everywhere...please leave your new and fresh ideas below.