This is not so much a how-to as a list of lessons I learn and forget and steadily re-learn every time another wedding shower comes ‘round. This is a list of guidelines I had to reacquaint myself with when my brother, sister-in-law and I recently hosted the biggest party I’ve ever thrown: a bridal shower for my sister. This is a list of rules I flagrantly ignored.
In my family, my very large family, my family which without fail dwarfs the other side at every. single. wedding., we do things big. I read blog posts and see Pinterest boards featuring showers for 15, 25 people, and gaze in awe at those parties. My family will never know such intimacy.
See, in my family, wedding showers tend to be large–as in, with an average of 45 women and very little in the way of age restrictions. Everyone from 21 on up is invited to squeeze into a living room for an afternoon. And even then those cutoffs are mere suggestions. For my sister’s party, a preteen, a couple toddler babes and a newborn were in the mix too. Bridal showers are less dainty parties and more mass gatherings for all female-identified members of the family.
In keeping with the gourmet standards set by my grand aunties, by and large everything is homemade. This is probably the most perplexing of all the unspoken dictates. We never hire caterers, but neither do we spring for Costco veggie platters. I suppose this family food tradition is derived from a mix of deeply ingrained frugality and a devotion to elevated home cooking. Even when it’s make-it-yourself sandwiches on the menu, my Auntie Margie will roast her own hams and turkeys for the spread (“It’s cheaper,” is her first response, when I ask why she goes to the trouble, followed by, “It tastes better,” and “It doesn’t go green like lunch meat does when you put it out in the sun.”). It’s as simple as that for her.
For my sister’s shower, we made a citrus salad with poached cranberries in a spiced simple syrup; a persimmon and spinach salad with candied pecans and blue cheese; and for the vegetarians, roasted cauliflower and mushrooms with quinoa, spinach, pumpkin seeds. But the piece de resistance, made by my brother and sister-in-law, was 45 individual pot pies, half chicken and the other half salmon. They were absolute showstoppers, as beautiful as they were delicious. My dad made his famous pumpkin pies and I made chocolate-dipped cinnamon-spiced rice krispies treats. My sister’s shower was a lovely, happy event filled with joy, great laughs, good food and best of all, so many of the most important women in my sister’s life.
THAT SAID, I was a harried mess for the bulk of the party.
The night before, as I was cleaning the house and putting it in party order, I had flashbacks to one of the first showers that my sister and I were ever involved in hosting years ago. I have this distinct memory of being up at 3am the night before the shower, cooking alongside my sister, and both of us promising each other we’d never put the other through the hell of hosting a bridal shower should one of us get married. We were unpracticed in the ways of party prep and advance planning, and somehow decided to make 90 mini frittata. While following through on our plans that evening we discovered that flaming hell called The Hosting Neophyte’s Final Night Before the Party.
I’ve learned a lot since then. This is some of my hard-won wisdom:
1) Do not make 90 mini frittata. I don’t care how cute they look, or how theoretically feasible they are. Cut them from your list. For some reason the cultural mores of the day define shower food as mini food, but when hosting a crowd, it’s time to rethink the call of the mini. (For the record, and for the above reason, the individual pot pies were not my idea. I have so much respect for my bro and sister-in-law for pulling them off so gorgeously.)
2) Plan a menu that offers make-ahead options. And then plan out day-of, day before, three days before, one week out to-do lists. Write out each dish and every single one of its steps, and do anything that can be done ahead of time as early as possible. Pad time estimates generously. (I’m always inspired by Rachel’s spreadsheets.)
3) Know your limits. I’m continually lulled into some false belief that I am a crafty person when in fact, I don’t get much joy from working with glue sticks and hole punches and crepe paper. Yet I only remember this when it’s 2am two nights before the party and Kevin–at my behest–is gently waving curled up sugar cone cornucopia back and forth to dry them off while I dash back and forth from the microwave to my curling station. I call this the seduction, and tyranny, of Pinterest.
4) Ask for help. I suppose recruiting your guests only really works when it’s family. My cousin Ivy RSVP’ed for the party with an offer to come by early to help, and it wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask for a hand. I took her up on it and little would have gotten to the table on time without her amazing help. Also, in the desperation that came in the final hour’s countdown to the party I may or may not have asked the guest of honor to make a crucial Trader Joe’s run.
5) Remember why you’re doing all of it in the first place. I love my sister with a nutty fierceness that’s developed over a lifetime and comes from having shared a bedroom well into adulthood. The party was a gift from my brother, sister-in-law, and me to her. We are not touchy-feely types, and in the place of open expressions of affection, we seem to have poured our love into the food we cook for each other.
And actually, one of my favorite parts of these showers is seeing my grand aunties, who are always on their feet working at family gatherings, kicking back and enjoying other people cooking for them for once. That, I love that part.
Pictured: Alisa’s contribution to the gift cards we asked guests to bring for my sister’s shower.