Mrs. Pumpkin, Saskatchewan, Canada
Blogger Since: April 10, 2007
Age and Occupation: 28, Lawyer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Farmer
Engagement Date: July 14, 2006
Wedding Date: June, 2007
About Me: I love movies, music and I am addicted to TV. When I have some spare time I also love scrapbooking and making personalized greeting cards and above all playing Hide & Seek or Duck, Duck, Goose with my two adorable nieces!
Grooms’ Showers
April 30th, 2007 @ 4:23 pm by Mrs. Pumpkin
Time for my first survey! The Weekly Roundup featured a story on grooms’ showers and joint showers, and now I’m wondering how common this really is.
The town that Mr. Pumpkin comes from (Pense, SK) throws a shower whenever someone from the town gets married. The moms of all of the kids from the bride or groom’s class in school host the shower, and everyone comes out to celebrate and visit and have lovely desserts; it’s always so much fun.
It used to be that they would host the shower for the bride whether she was the one from Pense or not, but recently (in the last two years, I think), they have started hosting the shower for the groom if he’s the one with the Pense connection. It ends up being more of a joint shower than a groom’s shower because the guests are still predominantly female–but I think that it’s fantastic that they switched their tradition to include the groom.
17 Responses to “Grooms’ Showers”
Can we have a “I don’t know b/c my bridesmaids and family are keeping me out of the loop in the hopes of it being a surprise for me” option? ;-D
By the time, it is all said and done, I will actually have 3 showers. FI and I are from different hometowns (we met in college) that are 4 hours apart, so one bridal shower would not have been very accommodating to both families. FI’s aunts threw me one last weekend in their town and my MOH and 2 of my 3 other bridesmaids are throwing me a shower this weekend in my hometown. Then we will also be having a couples shower from FI’s church in his hometown. Whew, I’m a busy bride!!
I didn’t vote, b/c technically I am not having a shower. The night before the wedding (after the RD), we are having a girls only get together for sharing memories and wisdom. It is not really a shower, though… more like a v. low key bachelorette.
I avoid others’ showers like the plague, so it would look extra double greedy if I were to have one. All the same, with a destinationish wedding (it’s 500 miles from us), there are tons of local folk that might feel left out. We’re planning a big local event as a joint shower, bachelor party, bachelorette party, semi-mandatory dance class (we’re bringing our teacher in), etc, the Sunday prior to the wedding…which just happens to be my birthday, too.
We’re having a very small destination wedding made up of people from both coasts and in-between, so we will probably just have a separate girls’ and boys’ days out for lunch and stuff the day before.
We are having a get-together at FH’s family lakehouse in July. Originally it was supposed to be an engagement party, but we figured 7 months after the engagement and 3 months before the wedding was kind of the wrong window of time for that, so we changed it to a wedding shower. I have no idea if I’ll have a bridal shower, because honestly, I don’t think any of my friends have even thought about doing it for me.
i wanted a shower that included my FI…but i guess it may be too much planning for those who need to find his friends…yada yada. i mentioned that to my MOH and sister but they seemed a little reluctant maybe of not sure how to combine it. i thought it would be meaningful to have him there..so he knows who got us what..rather for me to be telling him who got us what when we were using it or pulling it out.
None of the above. We are having an engagement party, for both of us, with our family and friends. I think it’s much more fun to do something to celebrate US than to have a separate shower — after all, there would be no reason to celebrate my marriage if it wasn’t for my fiance.
Miss Pumpkin -
My brother is getting married in Barrie, Ontario this coming August. We all absolutely love his fiance (who he met while in Grad school at UofT) and I really can’t wait to get up there for all of the festivities.
His fiance was telling us about some of the wedding traditions up in Canada. Most of them really don’t seem too different, but one that she started talking about seemed very unique - the Jack and Jill party. This post made me think of it…are you planning on doing one? Are they very prominent? If you know much about them, would you blog about them for everyone??
Thanks!
I’m from Northern Maine and we’re having a jack and jill (or rooster and hen as we call them). I noticed this trend started around 5 years ago. I think it’s great. It takes the pressure off of just me and my FI feels included. My family always makes sure to include the groom by getting a “man cake” and making sure some gifts are “man friendly” i.e. ladders, storage containers, camping gear.
Hi Crysten!
I have a friend who grew up in Sarnia Ontario and she calls them “Buck & Doe” parties! Unfortunately all I know about them is from her because they aren’t popular in the West.
What she has told me is that the MOH and BM throw a joint party (sort of like an engagement party) to raise money for the Bride & Groom to go towards their wedding. My understanding is that it doesn’t replace the shower or bachelor or bachelorette parties and that they are still thrown closer to the wedding.
I love that tradition and wish that it were more common where I live. I plan on throwing one for my friend when she gets engaged in effort to start it up in my area; you should do the same if you get the chance!
I had a bridal shower, but my fiance came at the end to open gifts with me… after all, they are for him, too! It was nice because then all of this relatives/friends got to see him, too, not just me! I also don’t like being the center of attention, especially when opening gifts, so it worked out that way too. Then again, I think at one point he did say that there was too much estrogen in the room… haha. He was a good sport. 
Not having any showers at all! I’d rather go to the spa with my girlfriends.
Thanks, Miss Pumpkin! Fun information…I don’t think my brother will end up doing one, but they sounded so cool!
[…] not sure if it is quite in the Buck & Doe tradition that I talked about in the comments of my post on Groom’s Showers, but I do know that this is both Mr. Pumpkin’s Stag and my Stagette rolled […]
[…] Pumpkin and I had our joint shower in his hometown this weekend and it was an absolute blast! As I blogged about earlier, the hostesses are the moms of all of the kids in town who are the same age as Mr. […]
