My friend is expecting her first and asked me if I would be the godmother. I accepted but now it's baby shower time. I volunteered to do the cupcakes and somehow in the past 3 weeks am now doing favors, cupcakes, games, a diaper cake centerpiece, and decorations. I haven't been to a shower before but I always thought the to be grandmothers threw the shower....is it true that godparent's usually organize the shower?

No, the Godparent's roles are to stand with the parents and vow to help guide the child in Christian life, not to organize the shower.

Did they ask you to perform all these tasks, or did they tell you? If they told you, then just say "Sorry, I don't have the time."

Theresa

The godparents are not party organizers.
The duty of the godparents is to help guide the child, and god forbid if something happens to both parents, in theory, at least in the eyes of the church, the godparents step in.
Thats the purpose of it.

Just go ahead and tell them you dont have the time or finances to do as they demand.
If they get all huffy and threaten to unmake you the godparent, then they only chose you to get stuff out of you.

Sorry your having to deal with that.

Ditto to the pp! Godparents are there to help guide the spiritual life of the child, not organize a shower.

I've read a few article about shower 'etiquette' and technically speaking I don't think it's supposed to be any family members. But I know we've never followed that. We gave my sisters their wedding and baby showers.

I think in all reality it just comes down to what your social customs are.

What everyone said above is correct. But what I have noticed, and this may be cause I'm Mexican, Godparents do tend to help out with the babyshower, 1st birthday party, stuff like that. And they give some great gifts!

I have always heard that it is in poor taste for family members to throw the shower.

For bridal showers, the maid of honor usually organizes the shower.

For babies I think it's close friends, but a lot of the baby showers I've been to have been organized by family members, too. It used to be that moms-to-be also only had a baby shower for their first baby, but I don't think most people observe that any more, either.

for me, my godparents' roles were to take over as full time parents when my "real" parents couldn't do it anymore. i've never been more thankful for anything in my whole life

as for shower planning, i don't know a whole lot about them, but i thought it was usually friends that threw that stuff. i know that it's not the godparents role.

It is not your role to throw the shower but it is nice of you to help. I was volunteered to throw my SIL shower b/c no one else would do it and I hated the idea of her mother having to throw it. This is a time where you should be supporting the mother to be, not organizing her events. Your role as a godmother is to guide the child through life and if something should happen to the parents you will be responible for that child. Good Luck and Congrats on being a God Mother!!!

Thanks for all your feed back...it was her mother that is technically throwing it but when we went decoration shopping it seemed like she had no clue on what to for anything. So I said since I lived down the road from the place I would decorate and I did volunteer the cupcakes and the favors she basically said since you have the decor and the cupcakes why don't you do the favors to keep everything together. I mean I don't mind doing it all but I wasn't sure if she was just assuming since I was the godmother that I should be doing it. She is doing everything financially. I did find a site before I came here that actually said that the godparents do throw the shower but you can never trust just one site. The woman expecting is my cousin but we were friends also, went to the same high school, had classes together, went out sometimes, so when people ask we are friends but also cousins. I don't think she knows I'm doing it all b/c she's going through some rough stuff. Thanks again for all your input.