Patricia Grisafi
The most boring part of my bridal shower, hands down, was opening all the gifts. I wanted to just open a few representative items and then get back to the real point of the party—spending time with loved ones.
But I had to sit up in front of the room while people stared at me unwrap presents. I was grateful, but it felt awkward. At least when the party was over, it was not difficult to put the gifts in a car and drive them home—unlike one Redditor who requested that gifts be sent to her home and found that most people disregarded that request.
Now, she’s stuck trying to get the presents from the East Coast to the West Coast, and she’s not happy about it.
“I just had my bridal shower near where my family lives on the East Coast. My fiancé and I live all the way in California, and prior to my bridal shower requested that any gift purchased (with the exception of cash) be sent to our address in CA.
Our registry contained all sorts of things, many of which are fragile like china, wine flutes, etc… it seemed like a no-brainer to politely ask if people could have their gifts shipped to us to avoid the hassle of opening things and then having to pack them back up and ship them to the literal other side of the country. I even suggested that people wrap up a picture of the gift so I could open that instead.”
The day of the shower came, and the OP noticed that she hadn’t received any gifts at her house. When she showed up, her 40 guests decided they would bring them to the party in person despite the OP’s request.
“I was so upset, I wanted to cry. The whole time I was thinking I had 2 options: either ship all of these fragile gifts back to CA, or return them all and then buy them again and send them to my address.
The thing is, my flight left to go back home the day after my shower, so now I’m stuck waiting on my mother to return everything for me. She said it’s hundreds of dollars to ship everything, so she’s just going to return it all to the companies they came from and then I can re-buy EVERYTHING. But she’s not one to hustle with things that aren’t about her, and told me she’ll get around to it eventually.”
“She mentioned I was overreacting about this and that people just want to see me open stuff. It just sucked to feel like people just wanted to see their actual gift get opened at my shower and didn’t care how inconvenient it really was for me. I’m going to have to wait months to actually get to enjoy this stuff/purchase all the gifts over again with all of the store credit.”
That does sound like a hassle! What did Redditors think of the bride-to-be’s situation?
“If the guests aren’t AH, then they are complete, and I mean COMPLETE, f*cking idiots. They are invited to a shower, and purchase gifts for OP, so they must know she lives on the west coast. They ought to have enough brain cells to rub together and know that transporting that kind of stuff is a complete pain in the ass,” said BelgianSexWaffle.
“Eh, they’re not assholes, but they’re selfish because they didn’t respect her wishes. People are obsessed with seeing people open their gifts, which is honestly really stupid bc she registered for the gifts, it’s not like these people took a lot of thought picking out the perfect gift for her to open. It’s really selfish and thoughtless,” noted look2thecookie.
“NTA. And I don’t at all agree with ‘they want to see you open it spiel. Getting someone a gift is about doing a kindness for the other person. It shouldn’t be about the gift giver. And you gave them a super creative out (wrap a picture) that would have produced the same effect anyway. This whole situation would have given me serious anxiety and I would have felt completely disrespected. The occasion was for you and about you… your wishes should have been honored,” said Chimples10.
“I think this was a case of poor planning and poor communication. My husband and I had a wedding reception near my parent’s home and asked for people to give us gift cards because we already had our household goods and would’ve had to pack everything in our suitcases OR ship them. I really feel for you, honestly. I don’t think you’re the A-H. But, the horse is out of the barn. If the stuff came from mass market retailers (i.e., Target) return the items and re-purchase them. It’s a hassle but will ultimately be cheaper than trying to ship heavy household items,” advised TX_Farmer.
Featured Image: Unsplash
