Time for a "chower"

Wedding season is here. In fact, I don't think it has ever stopped. In the past year and a half, I have been to eight weddings. EIGHT. That's almost one every two months! And don't even get me started on the bridesmaid dresses and the bridal showers. . . (Or should I say "chowers"?)

No, not because I was chowing down on the food, but because that's how it's pronounced. There was a huge debate in one of the two chowers I was at this weekend (yes, two. Meaning there are two more weddings coming up real soon) over how Mexican women from different regions make the "ch" sound.

The women from northern Chihuahua say they're from "Shiwawa" and some of the old-fashioned families in the south scoff at those who can't say they've visited CHapultepec.

Strange conversation to have at a chower, but not as strange as the topic that followed.

I might be familiar with chowers, knowing there are themes and such, but seeing as I've never been married, I had no clue there were different types for different crowds.

Is your religious grandmother coming to celebrate your engagement? It must be a "Shower Biblico." Symbolic gifts are given to keep the love and happiness in the marriage going and excerpts from the bible may be read, or a rosary may be prayed, or both.

Next, "el Shower del Abanico" or the Fan Shower. In this particular one, the bride-to-be's closest friends all agree on a set amount of money to give to the bride and then once it's all gathered, it's fanned out and tied, later to be included during the wedding's dollar dance.

"El Shower Personal," "El Shower de Casa" and "La Pedida" all translate to the Personal Shower (where lingere and bath and body products are given), the Shower for the House (self-explanatory) and the engagement party, respectively.

Being as curious as I am, I googled many of these titles that night and found little more than announcements for most. The next day, however, at the second chower, (which was a Shower Personal) I asked the married women for their take.

Many had a couple, if not all, of these chowers and still received gifts at the wedding. Making a mental note that these women will owe me my fair share of Kitchen-Aid deluxe mixers and silky pijamas, I sat there wondering what the cuchillos (knives) from the night before might have meant to the bride, seeing as the chower was not "de la casa," but a "biblico" one.