Did you/will you use your shower gifts before the wedding?

[PookiePrincess]

Just a question. I had a shower on Saturday and got all kinds of neat things that I want to use now! My mom said I'm supposed to wait until after we get married because they are "wedding gifts." What are your thoughts? What did/will you do?

I don't think I can wait 6 weeks to open up all my new goodies and use them!

[irish74]

My mom made me wait. In fact, the gifts were at her house until after the wedding so I wouldn't be tempted. She also wouldn't let us open any gifts that came in the mail until after the wedding. Bad luck according to her, but she is super superstitious.

[juliemag]

I did not use them until we were married. I've had friends who did use them, and I just felt that was sort of odd! But to each their own I suppose!

[J&K2003]

I didn't use my shower gifts before the wedding-- felt weird about it. Not sure why...

[PookiePrincess]

Okay, I just wanted to see what other people did. My mom is really superstitious and didn't want me to walk down the aisle for the rehearsal either (I told her she was nuts on that one.)

Guess I'll wait 6 weeks.

[Kellijo14]

Are you kidding? We started using ours before we got home. We went through a cookbook we got on our drive back home. We've been using the dinnerware that we received as soon as it was out of the box. We also started using the cookware. After the thank you notes were written, we considered it ours. Plus, some stuff has a return deadline and we wanted to make sure everything worked before the return period was over.

We also lived together (for over a year) before the shower, so we both got to use what I got. We already had our households combined. I'd rather put things away when we unloaded them rather than letting them lie in a pile for another couple of weeks.

[maplekitty]

We totally used ours as soon as we got them! Especially the towels, we were so excited to finally use our thick snuggly towels! What's the point of having stuff just sitting and collecting dust, when you can use them and enjoy them!

[shaqangel]

we waited to use our stuff until we got back from our honeymoon and set up home together.

[blahblah]

My shower was really close to my wedding so I needed to have all the stuff put away before the house pictures the morning of our wedding. So what was put away we used.

[BethElena]

Our shower was in April, and wedding in August. We purposefully did this, b/c we bought a house in February. And since I was living there, I needed gadgets and such, and people coming to the shower knew I would use them before the wedding.

I don't think it's tacky or anything to use them pre-wedding. If somebody didn't want you to use it pre-wedding, then they would most probably give you the gift AT the wedding. (or at least that's my logic)

[nic]

We used some of our shower gifts before the wedding. We couldn't help ourselves.

[Janey]

I used a few, but only because it would have been inconvenient not to. We're moving at the end of October, so all of the presents are still in boxes in "The Present Room" (Read: The Computer Room/Spare Bedroom). However, I bought some Bulgur Wheat and only used a little of it, and so i put the rest in one of the cannisters I received at my shower. Otherwise I would've had to use some sort of an office clip to keep the bag together, and risk it spilling all over. Then at my office shower a couple of weeks ago, I got some flowers. The only vase I have is one that I received from SIL at my previous family shower... so I used the vase.

I justified them both -- the cannisters had already been used as containers for flower arrangements at my family shower, so I figured, "What the heck" ... and the vase was a present at a previous shower, holding a present from another shower... so I figured that was okay. :o


An aside - Another SIL gave me some Penzey's Spices at my family shower, but they hadn't shown up from UPS by the time we had the shower, so she printed out a picture of them and said she'd give them to me when they showed up. When I got the box, I emailed her to let her know, and said, "Ya know, I've been thinking it's possibly a good thing they didn't show up on time -- less time to for them to taunt us into using them and causing us bad luck. As it is, they are sitting in The Present Room, awaiting a couple of rings on a couple of fingers." ;)

[PrincessTommi]

We didn't use any gifts, they sat up in our loft until after we came home from our honeymoon.

Ours wasn't really a superstitious thing, we just wanted our new things to be new until we were married. We lived together, so not too much changed from "engaged" to "married" in our daily lives. Waiting made a little more special and fun for us as we got back to our everyday lives after all the wedding hoopla was over.

[j.d.l.102205]

Kristi-
I had a shower on Sat too. I pulled some of the stuff out and put them in the cabinets and stuff, but since I don't live there FH won't really use them. He doesn't use alot of kitchen stuff right now because of living by himself. I didn't put out any of our towles and bathroom stuff yet.

[PG-rated]

We used everything we possibly could, as soon as we could. :D We had been living together for over four years at that point, with only the bare essentials - no serving dishes, extra flatware from my mom's house, collectible juice glasses from McDonald's, etc. I was SO happy to have decent things to cook with and eat from that I didn't give it a second thought.

[mel7dog]

We used everything right away, oops didn't know we were suppossed to wait!

[scorpioanne]

All my shower gifts were displayed at my parents home so guests could see what we got when they were there for the gift opening. I didn't get to use anything before :(

[Amy_6405]

We used things before the wedding, especially the vacuum cleaner, my old one was shot so I really needed a vacuum.

[Atlanta_eBride]

All my shower gifts were displayed at my parents home so guests could see what we got when they were there for the gift opening. I didn't get to use anything before :(

Wow, I was just thinking about this as I was reading. Do brides not do this anymore?

[Sare79]

Shower was on Sunday and we used the mugs tonight! I didn't know you aren't supposed to! :)

[Golightly]

Atlanta_eBride
My friend did this... All her gifts got sent to her mom who displayed them at her house in the town where the wedding was to take place. Guests were to drop by to see the family house and get a look at all the gifts. This was nice because it gave people a chance to see their hosts' home as well as what the bride's china patterns really looked like.

This worked for her because she got married in West Virginia and was setting up house in Raleigh, NC, which is defintely drivable. They just rented a U-Haul to get their "loot" home after the wedding.

My mom talked briefly about doing a display table, but with me in Boston, and the wedding in Florida, it would have cost us gazillions in shipping fees to send all the gifts to Boston after the wedding. In hindsight, this was a good thing as my parents' house was already very busy and crazy during the wedding weekend. I think my poor mom would have lost her mind if random guests kept showing up to see the house and gifts.

What my mom did instead was bring one place setting (that we had already received and had been sent to Florida) of each of our china patterns to my shower so everyone could see what they looked like.

DH and I moved into our new apartment together just a shy of a month before the wedding. We started using our new things right away as we received them because we didn't have room to store our gifts AND keep using our old crappy stuff. We figured that we were close enough to the wedding that no one would hold it against us.

Our biggest challenge was when the house we were supposed to rent fell through and we were literally homeless for a little while 5 weeks before the wedding. UPS was calling almost daily wondering what to do with all these big boxes... it was a nightmare.

Cheers.

[amew]

My friend did this... All her gifts got sent to her mom who displayed them at her house in the town where the wedding was to take place. Guests were to drop by to see the family house and get a look at all the gifts. This was nice because it gave people a chance to see their hosts' home as well as what the bride's china patterns really looked like.

We did this, too. My mother wouldn't have had it any other way. And I have to admit that the out of town guests did seem to enjoy going to my mom's house, meeting other guests, looking at our china on display, and having a glass of champagne. It has always seemed a little odd to me (kind of like bragging -- "hey, look at all the great stuff we got!"), but this practice is very common in my circle. The time when the guests come over to view the gifts and have a cocktail is referred to as the "Sip and See." Sometimes the Sip and See is an actually party hosted by friends of the bride's mother, other times it's just a casual "come by between 1 and 4 and we'll offer you a drink" kind of thing. Incidently, we lived about 1600 miles from my parents when we got married, so the day after we got back from our honeymoon, DH and I set out on a three-day drive with a U-Haul full of wedding gifts. Seems very silly of us to have done it this way in retrospect...

[heidi0622]

We did not use our shower and wedding gifts until after the wedding. DH and I lived together for a year before we were married. Since we weren't setting up a new home together after we got married, I decided to wait and use the stuff after the wedding.

It is a personal choice...I personally preferred this because it was so much fun to come home and basically transform our kitchen and bedroom from hand-me-downs to new things. It gave more of a "new" feeling to being married.

[shaqangel]

it was so much fun to come home and basically transform our kitchen and bedroom from hand-me-downs to new things. It gave more of a "new" feeling to being married.

we shared the same sentiments and it was such a wonderful feeling to set up our kitchen (and everything else) together and enjoy using our stuff together for the first time as a married couple! fun times for sure!

[jimmysgirl424]

We put all of our shower gifts into use immediately following the shower....

:D :o