Bridal Shower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A bridal shower is a party given for a bride before her wedding. Showers are usually coordinated by the bridesmaids, who invite guests to offer gifts for the home of the bride and groom. Because gifts are required of those who attend the shower, it has been considered rude for a relative of the bride to give it.

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.

The earliest use of this sense of the word in print may be in the Grand Rapids Michigan Evening Press 22 June 4, 1904: "The 'shower parties' that through mistaken hospitality the wedded couple are forced to attend..."

This custom is an American one. In other countries gifts are given at the wedding itself or sent to the couple's new home after the event.

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California originally referred to the entire region composed of the Mexican peninsula now known as Baja California and land in the current U.S. state of California.

The name is thought to have derived from the mythical paradise of Calafia portrayed in Amadís de Gaula, a 16th century Spanish romance by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, which in the book was a difficult to reach land with gold in plenty, free-loving Amazons living in caves, and strange beasts.

Some suggest that the word California may come from the early Spanish explorers who entered California via the hot southern regions and referred to California as being "hot as an oven" or a "lime oven" ("cali" - hot, "fornus"/ "forno" - oven + ending "ia" for a place; or with "cal" - lime, which is a usual form of Spanish to form new words out of Latin roots with Spanish new words). It may be derived from caliente fornalia, Spanish for hot furnace, or it may come from calida fornax, Latin for hot climate. According to one esteemed historical society it came from Califa, legendary figure in the indigenous settlement.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/