Shortly after Patrick and that i got engaged, my mother called having a request that was so cute, I did not understand what to say: \”The ladies at church want to throw a bridal shower.\”

The \”ladies\” in question were ladies who had watched me grow up in our small-town Methodist church, with whose daughters I attended countless birthday parties, bunked with at church camp and defied the chaperones at all-night lock-ins for Jesus.

I was touched. I hadn't were built with a conversation with one of these women for years and yet they wanted to throw us a party. And not simply any party. A presents party!

Trouble was, the idea of using a bridal shower freaked me out. I am a shameless extrovert who'll never turn down a shot at to be the center of attention, but I couldn't imagine myself surrounded by doting friends and family, opening silver-bowed presents amid tables of canapés and fizzy brunch drinks.

I'd already told my person-of-honor that they was excused from shower-throwing duty; I didn't have a much to politely decline another opportunity to get free shit. And yet, politely decline Used to do.

I am about giving gifts to celebrate milestones; after all, humans happen to be marking special occasions by doing this since the dawn of time. But something about going for a wedding shower thrown by well-meaning church ladies I hadn't talked to inside a decade seemed grabby in my experience.

I've written before within this column concerning the bizarre phenomenon of wedding registries within an era when so many couples already cohabitate before marriage. You've already gotten one of the biggest gifts life can provide – a forever partner – as well as on top of it, there is also carte blanche to inquire about individuals to upgrade your toaster situation!?

I couldn't let the nice church ladies upgrade my toaster situation.

Mostly, I needed to ensure my friends and family didn't go through multi-party burnout in the months and weeks leading up to our wedding. On the other hand, I wondered basically was denying my mom and her friends a chance to take part in a rite they'd arrived at expect and appreciate like a communal, it-takes-a-village-to-raise-a-child event.

I blame, as I usually do, the Wedding Industrial Complex, for making a consumer spectacle from something that feels natural and good – giving gifts to the loved ones. I simply didn't know how to have a presents party without getting a gimme-gimme party, and I didn't feel like trying. There's a time gifts gladly given start feeling like gifts grudgingly expected.

Because most people have heard of – or maybe even been a part of – that marathon wedding that appears to start with an engagement party, segue right into a friend shower, continue a piece shower, soldier on through a lingerie shower, detour into a honeymoon shower, and that's prior to the destination hen and stag nights that precede the day-of brunch, the marriage itself (oh right, the marriage!) and, if that's not enough, a send-off luncheon the following day.

Maybe I over-corrected in not having any pre-wedding showers, or perhaps an engagement party, or a \”real\” bachelorette party. I've certainly been to some excellent pre-wedding shindigs in my day – the couples shower being my favorite, because it centers the experience on the people marriage, rather than putting the bride on a pedestal as some kind of magical princess who's finally found her true place in the world vis-a-vis a guy.

Indeed, men can get a maybe an engagement party, along with a pre-wedding bachelor party, but beyond that, their family and friends are largely free in the fiscal fawning department. But woe unto the women, who've to walk an excellent line between grabby and gracious. That, I believe, was what turned me from the pre-wedding bonanzas more than anything else: the fact that, like a woman, I was expected to welcome them, while that wasn't the case for Patrick.

And yet, I write this column from my wedding trampoline. Yes, my wedding trampoline. In other words, our wedding trampoline, the incredible group gift that arrived by Fed-Ex truck this past year, within the heaviest single package That i have ever encountered. I barred myself from jumping on it before the wedding, lest I have to trade my heels in for a cast and flats. However, it's become a go-to writing spot for sunny afternoons, along with a go-to bad idea for everyone who's were built with a couple of beers at any one of mine and Patrick's many backyard barbecues.

I treasure it since i think it are operating in the true spirit of the items wedding gifts should be: items that help new families create those little villages of friends and family members they'll need within their lives on-going.

I ponder whether the church ladies wish to stop by and jump sometime.