Bridal showers at Littlejohn United Methodist Church are pretty rote. I grew up attending this church, and I've seen many a bride be showered there. When I was a kid, a shower was exciting, because it meant a potluck lunch after service. Now that I am an adult, it's exciting because it means a potluck lunch after service. Some things never change.
I confess that my experience in potlucks is almost completely limited to my old church, but as far as Littlejohn potlucks go, I'm an expert. There will be at least two plates of devilled eggs, and I will take one egg from each. The same goes for chicken pie, though I may just take a serving from whichever one has fluffier bread and more colorful vegetables. There will be coconut cake, which I will shun, and banana pudding, which I will enjoy. My mother will bring BFYRs (big fat yeast rolls) and lima beans, causing two or three people to go into a frenzy of lima bean excitement. This in turn will cause my mother to shake her head in wonder, because really, it's just beans, butter, salt, and pepper. There will be a table full of pre-poured drinks, all of which will be watered down by the time I try to figure out which of the yellow sodas is not diet and choose incorrectly.
Aside from the predictability of a potluck itself, the shower has a set schedule. First you eat (which includes a blessing by the pastor, then everyone lining up behind the bride, groom, and their respective families to get food). Then once everyone is more or less through with dessert, the bride and groom sit at a couple of metal folding chairs next to a big metal folding table piled with presents. There is a scribe, usually a female relative or friend of the bride, who dutifully notes down the giver of each gift. There are little girls who fawn all over the bride and fight over the opportunity to throw away extra wrapping paper and transfer the unwrapped gifts from the bride's lap to the unwrapped present table. There is a mother or aunt or grandmother (or all three) taking pictures. There are sundry women who sit around and watch to see how many Pyrex gift sets the couple receives, and there are sundry men sitting in the back, ignoring the whole process.
I've been to a bunch of these showers. As I got older, I would pay more attention to the actual gifting part - I was once likely one of those little girls who wanted to help, but probably just got in the way. My mother used to give the couple towels, and I always made fun of that. True, she gave really nice, thick towels, because she said everyone should have a set of really luxurious towels. But they were never the ones on the registry, and they likely didn't match anything the couple had, and getting married appears to be all about getting a bunch of new stuff that matches. Then gift cards got popular, and she switched to those. Like all the women in the church, she signed the cards as if they were from the whole family, but the understanding is that the matriarch is really the only one involved. The woman picks out the gift, the wrapping paper, and the card, and though every family member's name is on the card (even on down to any in-utero children), it's all written in the woman's handwriting.
These church showers are unusual among showers in general in that men are even invited. The reason for that is only because the event is a potluck and is held right after service. We can't very well deny the boys entrance to a church potluck; it's probably why a lot of them come to church at all. At most showers, the groom is often not even in attendance. But no one has any delusion that this is at all about any man. It's ironic how everything about celebrating how a girl got a man has nothing to do with him. Weddings and showers are about the women involved, and while that may not be very enlightened or modern, that's pretty much the way it is.
I went to Laura's shower a while back. If I used to be one of those little girls getting in the way, obnoxious, but tolerated, then Laura would have been one right there with me. She grew up in this church with me, and now she sat at the head of the circle with her fiance and opened presents while little girls crowded around. I sat next to her, because, Lord help me, I was the scribe. Women sat around us and oohed and aahed at all the Pyrex and Corningware while making jokes about Laura bringing dishes to potluck. Her mother took pictures.
More and more in my life, I come across times like these, times when I look around and think that I surely cannot be old enough to be in this position. I don't feel old, I feel too young, like I'm just a little girl playing pretend. But no, that is my car and my college diploma and my 401k statement and my twenty-third birthday growing ever more distant behind me. That is my childhood friend opening presents wrapped in paper with ivory-colored bells on it. Someday it'll be my childhood friend signing cards from her in-utero children, someday it'll be my childhood friend taking pictures of her daughter getting showered. We will both likely go through all the stages of womanhood as displayed at a country church bridal shower just like our own mothers and aunts and sisters did. I remember when the little girls crowding around us were born and when their mothers were showered, just like their mothers look at Laura in her engaged bliss and think, my, but she's grown. And someday the both of us will sit with our little daughters and try to keep them from being in the way of these little girls all grown up, the next generation of brides unwrapping the next generation of Pyrex.
We are hitting all the stages and filling all the shoes, from the crocheted booties to the Mary Janes with tights to the strappy heels to the sensible flats. We are taking our spots within this sisterhood, and it's not until far too late that we realize that we are turning into our mothers. If we are horrified at that thought, give us a few years until we realize that that was all we ever really wanted anyway.
My family gave Laura towels, and I picked them out. In my defense, they were the ones on the registry: Infinity collection, Ecru. Also, I had a coupon. I walked through the linen store fingering towels and thinking how I wished that I had a set of really nice matching towels, how everyone should have a set of really nice matching towels. And though the card said that the gift was from my entire family, it was in my handwriting.
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