Saturday, October 23, 2010

(Insert Gagging Noise Here)

After my realization that the MOTG is saddled with some rather arcane rules, I decided to see what I could dig up on the MOTB's rules and regulations. Now, I did this thinking it would be fairly straightforward; note, however, the recurring trend of me starting out, blissfully thinking "Oh, this shouldn't be too bad," and then being cosmically bitchslapped back to reality by the machinations of the MIC.

Sigh.

Anyways, at first it all seemed pretty tame. Help with the planning, lead the receiving line, help the bride pick out a dress, yadda yadda yadda. In the words of Dr. Evil, "pretty standard, really."

But then it jumped out at me. Amidst all the "help your daughter choose her flowers..." and the "help the bride choose the venue..." bullet points, there it was. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad task.

The MOTB is supposed to buy wedding night and honeymoon lingerie for the bride, and then present her with these offerings at the bridal shower.

I nearly projectile vomited on my computer.

How the hell could this possibly be a good idea?! I mean, I'm close with my mom. After all, she's the woman who, when I developed a raging case of colic a few days after I was born, somehow loved me enough to not drive back to the hospital, hand me to the maternity nurses, and say "This product is defective. I'd like to exchange it for one that works." Once I outgrew the colic, she dealt with my refusal to take naps and my invention of an imaginary little brother named Richard on whom I blamed any and all of my bad behavior. Including my lipstick art on the bathroom mirror. But I don't want to talk about that.

The bottom line is: my mom has put up with a lot from me over the last (almost) 30 years, and we're pretty damn close. The least I can do is involve her in this process as much as possible. However, I'd rather take a road trip across Iran with an Israeli flag attached to my car than follow through on this shit-sorry tradition.

Thankfully, she's totally on the same page, and she informed me that she'll buy me flannel PJs and socks instead. So as far as I'm concerned, all is well.

However, I still wonder who came up with this wretched idea. I hadn't heard of this before (obviously), so I wonder if it's something that pre-dates me. Is it some weird hold-over from the days of yore? Or, alternatively, was it thought up by the Real Housewives of New Jersey?

I'm sufficiently horrified by it that I want to know why it exists at all, but none of the wedding websites provided any backstory. But I still want to make sense of this, even if it's just to reassure myself that this is a weird custom from some bygone era when it was socially acceptable -- and neither the mother of the bride nor the bride herself would literally die from sheer humiliation.

I'm also left to wonder who actually abides this tradition. Is it common, and I've just been unaware of it? Do people routinely survive bridal showers at which they're presented with lacy undergarments and "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" comments about the wedding night? From their mom? And are the moms who follow through on this tradition the same women who subsidize their daughters' boob jobs as 16th birthday gifts?

And, most importantly, am I the only one who's totally grossed out by this shit?

4 comments:

  1. This is not common and very archaic.
    Of course, my husband's aunt and grandmother presented me with lingerie at my shower. OMG embarrassing.

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  2. OMFG. I'm pretty sure I would've keeled over from embarrassment -- props for staying upright and calm!

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  3. Well, I'm grossed out!
    I'm thinking that this particular vomitrocious tradition stems from when brides were given a trousseau before they were married, this trousseau containing 'brand-new outfits to see a woman through her wedding, honeymoon, and newlywed days' It is the only explanation that makes sense to me at least. (http://honeymoons.about.com/cs/shopping/a/bridaltrousseau.htm).

    However, I have had an experience with this...
    When I lived in St. Louis, I befriended a group of very religious people. Let's just say that they were STRONGLY against premarital sex. However, when one of the girls was getting married (at 19) they had a shower and it was INSANE. The amount of super duper racy lingerie given to the soon to be bride by her mother, aunts, sisters etc was staggering and it was very 'wink wink, saucy minx etc...'....yeah, I left early.

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  4. I'm trying to picture my mom gifting me with sexy lingerie, and it's not so much disturbing as it is comical - in a comedy of errors sort of way. I think my mother has said two words to me about sex in my entire life (I'm still not quite sure how I learned about it), and we're both pretty happy to keep it that way.

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