Manolo for the Brides

The fabulous Ashley recently sent me a link to twenty bridal shower games and I couldn’t help but think of my own shower. We didn’t play any games, but my mother did make me wear a extra-large sombrero festooned with ribbon removed from all the presents. I wore the hat because I am a ham and will do whatever it takes to remain the center of attention. Don’t believe me? I even did a little dance!

Many of the games requiring personal knowledge of the wedding couple (e.g., the Couple’s Roast) wouldn’t have worked, since none of the people I actually hang out with on a semi-regular basis could make it to the shower. I believe that only two non-family members at the shower had ever met The Beard! But there are plenty of games that don’t require anyone in attendance to know anything about the groom OR the bride. Here are a few examples:

Mystery Toilet Paper Game
When guests show up, hand them a roll of TP and tell them to tear off whatever length they think they’ll need. Do not explain what it’s for. When the shower is in full swing, try to fit each length of TP around the bride’s body in the bustular area. Whoever has the length that is closest to her bust size wins. You can modify this game for height or waist size if you’d rather not think about the bride’s boobs.

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I was going to dig into my archives today today to finally feature some of those previously answered reader questions that are waiting for their 15 minutes, but I received a query yesterday afternoon that was too intriguing to put off. The question was simply this:

Have you heard of cellophane parties? Apparently, this is a “new tradition” in bridal showers where guests are asked to wrap their shower gifts in cellophane. Gifts are then displayed on a table for other guests to see, but the bride never unwraps them all, presumably “saving” everyone from a tedious, lengthy gift-unwrapping session. Are these as tacky as they sound?

Color me out of the loop, for I have never, ever heard of a cellophane party. The term itself conjures up images of wild fêtes of yesteryear best forgotten, but brings to mind nothing even remotely resembling an event that typically includes grandmas and great aunts. For the person who posed the query, I did a Google image query with SafeSearch off and still found naught but cellophane and boobies of the usual mammarical variety.

As for cellophane showers, I could not, in all my searches, find a single mention of this supposed new tradition. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of watching people open gifts because it seems so third grade, but that’s pretty much what a shower is all about. Like you said, without the unwrapping, the oohs and ahhs, and the making of the silly hat, it starts to seem like a gift grab. “Here’s a bacon-wrapped scallop and a glass of champagne, now hand over the loot!”

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No one threw a bachelorette party for me. I know, wah wah wah. My bridal shower ended up being slightly weird because a goodly handful of my friends never received invitations. This was probably due in part to the fact that my MOH was 16 years old. All I know is that I dutifully gave up the names and contact info they asked me to provide and that’s where my responsibility ended.

I heard from numerous girlfriends in the days leading up to the affair, all of whom were sooo sorry they couldn’t attend but they’d only just heard about it and simply couldn’t travel out of state on such short notice. At the time I was too busy working three jobs and planning a wedding to lost much sleep over it, but it was a tad disappointing.

To make a long story even longer, a bachelorette party would have been nice, but the only person who suggested one was my soon-to-be ex-stepmother and her idea of a good bachelorette party is going out for a rowdy evening with the gals the night before the wedding. Get hitched with a hangover? No thanks!

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I love anything one can buy without having to schlep one’s tush to the store. In fact, while planning my wedding, I looked for any and every opportunity to shop from the confines of my office…then I wrote a book about it! I do understand that there are some folks who get a real kick out of going to the mall or exchanging pleasant banter with shopkeeps, but I’m guessing that for every one of them there’s someone like me who’d rather not spend their Saturdays braving the retail gauntlet.

Some things are just designed for online shopping–faux flowers, dresses, paper goods, and favors come to mind. Other things don’t fare so well when squeezed into a cramped mail truck. Thus far, all of my efforts to find fancy iced wedding and shower appropriate cake were for naught. Sure, you can buy cheesecakes and petit fours and rum cake, but the rigors of shipping heretofore demanded some degree of cakey stability, ruling out varieties commonly associated with nuptials.

Until now, that is…

Fat Daddy Bake Shop takes cupcakes to the next level, packaging them in little canning jars for easy delivery via airmail. At $65 for ten 1/2 pint cupcakes–or should I call them jarcakes–it’s unlikely you’ll be sending your wedding guests home with sweets ensconced in glass. That price point does, however, lend itself to serving them to bridal shower and bachelorette party attendees or giving them to attendants as part of gift baskets.

And, happily, the flavor selection lends itself to NOM NOM NOMing. Were I to choose five, I’d pick the butter cake filled with coconut and layered with cream cheese frosting; banana cake with butterscotch chips and golden butterscotch frosting; brown sugar butter cake blended with toffee bits and topped with chocolate buttercream; vanilla cake with coffee, chocolate chips and layered with vanilla buttercream, and dark chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, caramel and walnuts, topped with caramel buttercream and nuts. Then I’d lapse straight into a sugar-induced coma because I have absolutely no willpower to speak of.