- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Baby Showers
Corts
member
What's the tackiest shower you've ever been to?
Corts
member
in Baby Showers
Continuing the theme of one of the post below 
The worst one I've ever been to was my sister's best friend. Her mother sent out invites 10 days before the shower. It started at noon. All 50 guest were there on time. Guest of honor shows up at 1:30 complaining of running errands for her BF. No food or drinks were served until then. Complete meal consisted of a 3ft sub, bag of chips, and 2 bottles of pepsi. For 50 people, 3 of whom were diabetic and were stuck drinking tap water. Guest of honor rips through her gifts, yelling at her mom "I thought you put the registry info on the invites!". Her entire registry had been items over $80.00, not only did the mom put it on the invite, but also a notation to "give as generously as possible due to financial concerns". Gag. Afterwards, guest of honor calls up each guest to ask where they boughther gift, so she can return it for store credit. Complains to each of us that no one bought her what she needed. Classy.
That was 5 years ago...I'm still waiting for a thank you note. And still pissed I took 5 hours out of my saturday to attend this nightmare.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: What's the tackiest shower you've ever been to?
WOW!!! I love the "give as generously as possible" note, that's a new one!
I've honestly never been to anything tacky. I did just get an amazingly gorgeous wedding invite to a wedding reception in a very upscale venue...it said "by kind request, no boxed gifts" which totally ruined the invitation.
I went to a bridal shower that turned out to be a "Pampered Chef" party and we were all expected to buy at the shower.
My H did the photos for her wedding and she was pg within a month after. The baby shower was pretty normal but she was in a bad mood the whole time. I bought her almost $150 worth of baby stuff and diapers ( b/c her moron of an H thought that babies only went through a box of diapers a month and thought they would only be spending $40 a month on diapers.)
Both under 22years old.
Still no thank you's for shower, photography or baby gifts.
That is awesome(ly tacky!).
My best story is that my best friend has had 6 baby showers. Two for her first, one for each subsequent child. Full showers. Five daughters, with 8 years between the oldest and youngest.
I was invited to a shower for the wife of one of my husband's coworkers. The coworker is a partner in the company. This was the 4th shower they were having. The entire invite list consisted of employees of the company (or their wives) and company clients. The invitation was an e-vite that included 3 registries. There was not a single item on any of the registries under $50. We all received several "follow-on" emails to the original e-vite. The first requested that we all include 2-3 children's books with our gift to "build the baby's library". The second requested that each of us bring $10 in "silver coins" to fill the new baby's piggy bank. The third requested that we all bring diapers for a raffle. The final straw for me was when I received an email from the hostess asking that in addition to buying a gift off of one of the registries, providing several books, bringing $10 for the piggy bank, and participating in a diaper raffle, she would also like for me to provide the cupcakes for all of the guests at the party (estimated to be around 100).
I politely declined the invitation. I heard from others that attended that the shower lasted over 5 hours.
To the OP, that is almost unbelievable.
The one I went to wasn't nearly that bad, but it was a wedding shower for a 2nd marriage at a restaurant where we had to pay for our own meals.
When I lived in MI I was invited to a shower in FL (friend of a friend) and on the invite it asked the guests to send $25 to cover the cost of the food, decor and venue. I figured that was in addtion to the gift since it WAS a baby shower. I thought maybe this was the norm for FL but asked my SIL who lives there and she said she never heard of that. I have since read posts here (a while back) where there were people to "pay an admission" and was specifically for the food, decor and venue. Needless to say, I did declined.
The shower invite was for a money shower. It actually said money shower on the invite and went on to explain that the mom-to-be requested money only for as a gift. The shower lasted three hours which for our family is way too short and had no food. Guests were offered a drink. One each. And there was a cake but not enough for everyone.
In my family and circle of friends second, third, even fourth or more showers are the norm and are gladly given. However many babies you have would be how many showers you have. They are always big fun family affairs with lots of food and punch and games and prizes. The guests are treated wonderfully. Until coming to this site I didn't know this wasn't done by most people.
Baby shower for the 5th child. Invites specifically asked for cash in lieu of gifts. The family lived in a 2 bedroom home and wanted to build onto their home. The mom opened each envelope and stated out loud how much was in it. I bought a gift card to BRU.
The funniest part was there was someone who recited poetry. She started off by saying that she was honored to be asked to do her craft and this was the perfect setting for her to do so. Her first poem started off with "DIE DIE DIE!!!" It was something about the police beating up innocent people. I forgot what the second poem was about, but definitely not about bringing a baby into the world. DH and I sat there stone faced and we were the only two who didn't clap afterward.
Oh I have a registry tacky to share...
I have seen it before but only been to one shower where this happened. A friend of mine had her second baby. Her registry had one box of nipples for the new baby on it...and a full-on toddler princess room decor change for the rest. For the first child.
I went to a baby shower where we had to pay for our meal ($20 for a super crappy buffet), and during the meal it became clear that wine was being provided... but only to family members at the VIP tables. The rest of us had water. Awesome. Then I got a thank-you card that was one of those "one-thank-you-fits-all-poems". Really appreciated.
Oscar born October 2011
Miscarriage at 8 weeks (August 2013)
DD due September 1, 2014
DD2: February 2014
I woudln't necessarily call this shower tacky but more just annoying... I got invited to my SIL's SIL's shower (my DH's sisters, husbands sister... follow that at all?) I felt obligated to go becuase it was in the town I live in and my two SIL's and my MIL were going... ugh...
it started at 12:00 so i didn't eat anything. The food was not served until 1:00, no appetizers or anything during that hour wait so everyone was starving. Then they waited until every single person was done eating both lunch and dessert (so another good hour +) before they started opening presents (so you know all could be on her). IT was the longest more boring shower ever. Were 4 hours into present opening and she still wasn't done so I finally left...
Does that mean you can bring one in a bag?
I don't even understand what this means..? Don't wrap the gift? Or only cash because it fits in an envelope?
Yes it means only money as a gift. Which is funny because if I got one of those I wouldn't go to the baby shower, but if for some reason I had to.....I would just take everything out of the boxes and put them in a bag and then tell them that I took all of the boxes off of the gifts like described in the invite and ask them if they have horrible recycling service so they didn't want to deal with the boxes in recycling.......
I have never heard of people actually saying "cash only" at a baby shower until I read some of your posts....I am shocked!
I think the only time I've ever thought of that is at a birthday party when I was young...lol.
MIL decided to throw a shower for my DH's cousin. 5 days before, she called everyone to tell them about the shower. This isn't sooo bad.
The day of I get a call from MIL telling me to bring another small gift because they are going to play a game where the mom to be is going to "win" all of the small gifts. Annoying to have to go back to the store to pick something up.
On the day of the shower, I get to MIL's house early to see if she needs any help. Her and SIL were going on and on about how funny this shower was going to be..... the mom to be didn't want a shower and is very embarassed by any attention. From their conversation I gathered that the mom to be didn't know anything about this shower, therefore MIL and SIL were laughing a the mom to be's discomfort. It was so awkward.
Anyway, people start to show up and I realize that there isn't enough seats for everyone. Grown women had to sit on the floor. Who does this??
The mom to be shows up and is very gracious about the whole thing.
The we play a game where MIL reads a story and every time she says baby we had the pass the baby bottles aroud (there were two). MIL had counted it out so that I would get one. Thankfully, something got messed up and I didn't get it. At the end of the story the two people with the bottle had to suck the juice out of the bottle and the winner got the prize. More akwardness all around.
Then we ate. Cake, chips with nacho cheese dip served in the jar, some M and M's, and pickles.
I can't tell you how happy I was to leave that shower!
Not tacky, just rude: Mom to be shows up an hour and a half late to her own shower, blaming her pedicure, and then the hostess proceeds to have us address our own thank you notes (I was thinking at the time, "How about I just write the damn thing too?").
All this shortly after I miscarried, which everybody knew about, and couldn't help but pester me about it. Awesome!
the best part about that idea is that they can't return them then either! WOOT!
I've never been to a horribly tacky shower, but my uncle had the most tacky wedding I'd ever been invited to.
1. My name (and my sister's) was on my mom's invite. I hadn't lived at home in 5 years, sis had moved out that year (and was engaged). I was with now DH, and neither my sister's FI nor my now DH were invited, according to how the invite was addressed. My mom called to clarify, and my grandma claimed she "forgot" that we SO's (I had been with DH for over a year, sis had been with FI for over 5) and they were invited.
2. Because we were family, we had to be at the church 2.5 hours before the ceremony for pictures (even though the bride and groom were not seeing each other before the ceremony). Ceremony was at 2. There was no snack or lunch available, and we were not informed there would not be ahead of time.
3. My little brother and sister were expected to spend the day with bridal party since they were the ring bearer and flower girl. This meant no naps, and young children hanging in a church all day is just not a good idea without some sort of activity for them.
4. After the ceremony, there was a 2 or 3 hour gap for pictures. They had beer and champagne available, but no food. Remember the whole no lunch thing? Yeah, my sister was almost drunk off of one beer. lol.
5. When they did finally get to the reception, it took another hour before salads were served. When dinner came out, it was a nasty stuffed chicken thing that my sister couldn't eat (she has chron's), and no one else wanted to (it was dry, lukewarm and hard as a rock). The kids got french fries and chicken strips. The bridal party and parents of the bride and groom had STEAK. Yes. Seriously.
omg, it was so awful. And they wanted it to be this super classy affair. They picked an uber spendy reception site, she would only look at gowns that were 3,000$ and up...and yet, on the etiquette side, it was a massive FAIL. We left after the first dance because my sister and I were starving and stopped at McDonald's on the way home.
They divorced 3 years later.
I don't know about tacky, per se, but I had a friend do some really tacky things at a shower I was hosting for her.
When my best friend got pregnant, she asked me to host her shower because she didn't want her mom to. Having met her mother, I didn't really blame her, so me, my sister, and one of my other good friends took up the party planning.
One thing you should know is that my sister and I do not throw halfway parties. We go all out. We ended up sending out invitations to about 25 people, including my friend's family. We bought food for about 30 people, because some of our friends have issues with going places by themselves, so we knew that some people would bring others with them. That wasn't a big deal.
First of all, my friend was over an hour late. Second, she tells us the day of the shower that her family had already thrown her a shower and were not going to come to this one. If we had known that, we could have just had one big shower with her family. Instead, we have food for thirty and I think a total of eight people showed up (and that included me, my sister, and the other friend who helped us set up). And the really sad thing is that most of those that did show up came for me and my other friend who was helping me host. They knew the mom to be, but not very well. It was a complete disaster and my sister and I were out a lot of money for something that could have been shafted completely if my friend had only been honest with me about her family not coming. We were expecting about 10 or 15 family members.
BFP on 1/1/11; pPROM at 19 weeks; Jameson Thomas born on 4/5/11 at 20 weeks.
Imagine a love so strong that saying hello and goodbye the same day was worth the sorrow.exact same thing happened to me!! i was guilted into throwing a shower and the girl had had 2 other showers!!!! her own mother didn't even drive up for this one. Like 10 people when we planned on 40
grrrrrrrrrr
I was wondering if I was the only one who attended a shower in a bar! I don't know why it was at the bar, except it was a co-ed shower. No relation to anyone who owned or worked at the place. Oh and the shower started at 3, on a Saturday, while the bar was open. So there were baby-themed confetti, streamers, cake, you name it, in the middle of a bar where on one side there were people getting drunk, and on the other side several people playing pool and air hockey. Classy.
I think this is the worst! WOW!!