Here’s an interesting question, brought to us by modern technology and your favorite ultrasound guru.

Let’s say you’re filling out your baby shower invites, and all of a sudden, you come to a full-stop at the place where it says, “in honor of.”

What goes in that space? Is it mom’s name? Mom’s and dad’s names?

Or since you happen to know that baby Jackson is coming along ’round September 4th, isn’t this party really in his honor? (And you’ve seen the equipment, so you’re 99% sure it really is Jackson and not Jenna.)

Fun questions.

By tradition, the baby shower invite would feature mom’s name. This is the same traditional scenario where Mom and a dozen of her homies sit around, sip punch, play a few games and pick at a yellow cake and some tiny egg salad sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Old school.

Then, coed or couple’s baby showers became more in vogue, and people remembered that dad was an important part of this miraculous event. So for these showers, the modern trend is to include both mom’s and dad’s names on the invite.

 

But most interestingly — thanks to technology — plenty of couples know the sex of their baby, when he or she’s due, and the baby’s name. They use this information to deck out the nursery, and since they’re constantly referring to baby Jackson by name among themselves and their friends, it seems only natural to think of putting his name on the shower invitation, that adorable shower cake, and so on.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But just one caveat: if you put baby Jackson instead of mom’s name on the invite, you could end up with some confused guests who aren’t as clued in as the parents, and don’t really know whose shower it is.

On the other hand, once your guests get to the party, then you’re free to go wild: personalize the cake with Jackson’s name, put up banners in his honor, put his new monogram on the glassware if you like.

In other words, go traditional, if you like, or go modern. Either way, it’s bound to be a fabulous shower.

Tags: baby shower etiquette, baby shower invitation, baby's name at baby shower

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Invitations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.