Origins Of Bridal Showers


by Beverly Huffine - Date: 2009-12-03 - Word Count: 445 Share This!

Before the wedding date, the bride and the groom to be are usually treated on an occasion widely practiced in almost all modern cultures. For the groom, this event is known in many terms, including stag party, stag night, or stag do (commonly used terms in Canada, UK, Ireland, and New Zealand), bull's party (South Africa), or buck's party or buck's night (Australia). But more commonly, this is called as the bachelor party. Aside from the groom's party, the bride also holds its own event before the actual wedding date. This event is called the bridal shower.

A Bridal Shower
A bridal shower is a gift giving party given for a bride before her wedding. The custom originated in the United States, although the first stories about these events have been known to originate in Brussels, Belgium around 1860. It remains a primarily U.S. and Canadian practice. Similar to the stag party, in which the best man is in charge of the party, bridal showers are usually coordinated by the bridesmaids, who invite guests to offer gifts for the home of the bride and groom.

Origins of Bridal Showers
The custom of the bridal shower is said to have grown out of earlier dowry practices when a poor woman's family might not have the money to provide a dowry for her, or when a father refused to give his daughter her dowry because he did not approve of the marriage. In such situations, friends of the woman would gather together and bring gifts that would compensate for the dowry and allow her to marry the man of her choice.

A frequently quoted legend traces the origin of this practice to the Sixteenth or Seventeenth Century Netherlands. However, there are also parallels with many dowry practices and the U.S. Colonial or hope chest (trousseau) custom.

There is no such custom in the U.K., where wedding presents are normally selected from a list provided by the couple, and delivered either at the wedding or by the shop, and sometimes displayed at the wedding. A related custom practiced in medieval England was the Bride Ale; in Langland's Piers Plowman there is a reference to a bruydale. This was a feast held before the wedding day, at which the bride made beer and sold it to the guests at a high price.

In the United States bridal showers started in urban areas in the 1890s. This was mainly among the upper middle classes, whereas the lower class didn't have the means needed to start their own bridal showers. But by the 1930s, bridal showers had spread out across the US, including those from the rural America. For more information visit to our site at http://philippineweddingplanner.com

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