The Everything Wedding Shower Book

Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

The second secret of good staff management is phone numbers. Yep, that's it. For everybody who says they are going to do something, write down what it is they are promising to do or bring, what their numbers are, and when they will call you to confirm that they are doing or bringing it. Call them the week before to remind them what they promised. Expect surprises. That's why you, the consummate shower thrower, have secret number three...

Have a Backup Plan for Your Backup Plan

While this obviously isn't brain surgery, people are the unpredictable factor in all your planning, and things will go wrong. Those of you who share my perfectionist tendencies will want to maim whoever thwarts the perfect shower you have planned, but we will avert disaster with a great backup plan. Here's how it works:

1. If you are doing it potluck, have two of everything coming (e.g., two green salads, two casseroles, two fruit salads, etc.).
2. No matter how you are preparing the food, know that for the right price, at the last minute you can get the local deli, grocery store, or convenience package to smooth over the rough spots. No green salads? Go get the prepackaged, prewashed lettuce for $2.39 and a premade Caesar salad kit. One minute later, you've got the missing salad on the table.
3. The bakery screwed up the cake and it says "Happy Sixth Birthday, Tommy!" which you noticed after you got it home. Fine. Lose Tommy's name with a cold knife on a chilled cake. (The icing will lift right off.) Replace it with your own message, using a tube of decorator's gel (from the baking goods section). Tommy's cake is decorated like a dinosaur? Sprinkle it with some colorful flakes and a plastic whatever you bought to decorate the table with, and add some nonpoisonous flowers.

See? Everything is remedy-able. Worse things would include rain on your garden party. You would have called in advance, however, to make sure you had a backup location or a party-rental place ready to bring you a big waterproof canopy on a half-hour's notice. It might cost a bit more, but at least it won't ruin your party!

The bottom line of backup plans is: Try not to need one. Call the people you are counting on, even the professionals (bakers, caterers, musicians), to confirm a week ahead, and if you know someone is a space cadet, call also the day before. You are entitled to be nutty. In the words of the whining song from the '60s, or a very close rendition thereof: "It's my party and I'll panic if I want to, panic if I want to, panic if I want to..." Choose not to panic by following the steps in this book for a flawless event.

How Do I Properly Acknowledge Anyone Who Helps Me?

With the exception of a party you cohost with someone else (in which case both of your names would appear on the invitation as the hostesses), the best and easiest way to thank the people who help you is loudly and in public at the shower. Check this probable scenario out (You are now named Martha...):

"Oh, Martha! That's a lovely cake!" says Gertrude.