A short wishlist for a baby or bridal shower

You should, on your own phone. What's been bought is hidden on your own page, and you're the one the surprise is for.

If your host builds it, that works backwards. Their page won't show what's been bought, and you'll see every mark as soon as you open the link. So start the list yourself and send your host the share link. When they open it they can see what's taken, which helps when your aunt calls them the night before to ask what's left.

A store registry is built for equipping a nursery or a first home from nothing. It has room for a long list and its own checkout and returns. Plenty of showers don't need that much.

A second or third baby is the obvious case. That party is often called a sprinkle, because the family likely has much of the gear already, and the guests are usually immediate family and close friends. A small shower among a few friends is similar, and so is a bridal shower when you've shared a home for years and what you'd like is better towels, not a first set.

A short list also isn't tied to one store. The crib sheets from a big retailer, a mobile from a small shop and a secondhand rocker you'd be glad to be handed all sit on one page, behind one link.

The limit here is 20 ideas, which makes this the wrong tool for a from-scratch nursery. If that's what you need, use a store registry.

Yes. Keep the registry for what that store sells, and use this list for what it doesn't: something handmade, a secondhand find, a small shop's blanket, a favor like a home-cooked meal in the first month.

You can also paste the registry's link as one idea so guests find everything from one place. Say in its note that purchases there are tracked by the store, and ask guests not to mark that line as bought, because a mark would make it look finished.

A coworker and a grandmother won't spend the same amount, so give each of them somewhere to land.

• For a baby: clothes a size or two up, with the season they'll be worn in the note.
• For a sprinkle: the things that run out or wear out, like diapers in a named size, instead of gear you already own.
• For a bridal shower: the everyday things you'd replace if you could, like sheets, knives or a set of glasses, with the exact color or pattern linked.
• One larger item, such as a stroller or a stand mixer, for guests who want to go in together.
• Anything you'd welcome secondhand, typed as an idea: "a pre-loved high chair would be perfect".

A shower is a party held for giving gifts, so sharing a list is accepted here in a way it isn't for most parties. On the detail, etiquette advice isn't unanimous even within the Emily Post Institute: some of its pages say gift details go with a shower invitation but not on it, for example on a separate sheet, and another says a link right on the invitation is okay. With an emailed or group-chat invitation, a second message with the link covers both.

Guests who live far away will ask where to send things. Reply with an address privately. Don't type it into a note on the list, where everyone the link is forwarded to could read it.

Not from the list. It shows that an item is taken and never who took it. The old shower trick still works best: ask one guest to write down each gift, with a few words of description and the giver's name, as you open them. Write your notes from that sheet.