Well, I’m sure we all know by now that guests are under no obligation to give a newlywed couple a gift that is equal in monetary value to the cost of one or two plates at the reception dinner. In fact, guests are under no obligation to give brides and grooms any gift at all – though it’s not nice to abstain.
Neither is it appropriate to ask for money or specify that it will be a wishing well wedding in your wedding invitations. It’s alright to have a card catcher at the reception but you should never expect people will feel inclined to include cash with their cards.
Can you tell I’m still in an etiquette centered frame of mind?
Luckily, the rules for guests when it comes to gift giving are relatively simple. Guests should send their gifts ahead to the residence of the MOB and FOB or to the home of the bride- and groom-to-be. Likewise, gifts can arrive just after the invitation is received or a bit after the wedding has taken place.
Guests who want to know if or where the couple might be registered can ask someone in the wedding party, a relative of the couple getting married, or individuals who are helping out with the planning. But, according to Beau Coup (and Miss Manners), choosing not to utilize the registry is in no way unmannerly.
Some people may still prefer the element of surprise when giving a gift, or might have something personal in mind to give to the couple. A gift should be a token of affection, and is not intended to pay for the wedding. However, to not send a gift altogether is in poor taste. Depending on your relationship with the couple, the gift can be small, or something more substantial.
As you can no doubt imagine, cookbooks, like Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes, remain a popular choice.
Wow, I think requesting money outright like that is just crass. If you can’t make do with it, you go without! It’s totally incredulous that people pass off a sense of entitlement like that by slipping it into an invitation (I’m referring to the first link: “This will be a great way for us to pool together and buy ourselves something quite luxurious, or to make our honeymoon even better.”). It’s one thing if the bride and groom have been living together for awhile and have most of their house stuff but it’s another to just panhandle, no matter how fancy it’s worded.
Right? Just because it rhymes doesn’t make it somehow okay!
I’m speechless – I thought the websites begging for money were bad, but to put something on the invitation? How awful! If I ever got an invitation like that, the couple would get a “no” on the RSVP card and a lovely, tasteful wedding card, no money included, mailed to them. Yikes!
I know it’s “not nice to abstain” from giving a gift, but I do find it hard to fork out for a gift when I’ve paid hundreds of dollars to travel to a wedding. There should be some sort of indulgence or exception in this case, I think. I wonder if Miss Manners would agree.
on the topic of registries particularly, we’re going to a friends wedding in a few weeks and apparently the bride has listed a whole heap of things for her family as she has no need for them.
They told her to register for approximately 400 items due to the size of the guest list but when they had trouble picking that many things she simply asked her brother if he needed anything!!! Now I know that I feel like buying her something terribly hideous just so I know at least it won’t go to anyone else!
Some of the best wedding gifts I got were nothing I could have registered for. My great aunt sent a piece of her mother’s silver to me (that’s the great-grandmother I was named for, incidentally), a good friend stitched us a needlepoint canvas with our names and wedding date on it, my MOH picked got a print by a local artist we both liked – and who had been a friend of my mother’s – and framed it for us, another friend who is a talented artist in his own right gave us one of his paitings…these are especially precious.
I treasure the things people got us from the registry, of course. Good cookware, eight settings of good stainless flatware, the towels that are still (mostly) going strong thirteen years later, all those basic, practical items that have helped us in our lives together. But the ones that are just a bit more personal…those have a special place in my heart.
IOW, don’t be afraid to go off-register. The registry is simply a wish list, and sometimes we don’t know what it is we need the most.
I’ll check the bridal section of the Miss Manners book, Jezebella. But I’ll bet she does agree with you.
The last “give us money for a house” wedding invitation I recieved? The couple broke off their engagement. Hmmm…..
Oh, I can’t stand to get panhandling invitations: for weddings, graduations, baby announcements, etc. but I do get them from time to time. There’s one exception that, for some reason, doesn’t bother me. Although I do wonder what Miss Manners would think of it:
This usually goes with funerals, but I once saw it on a wedding invitation as well– asking that, in lieu of gifts, a donation be made to ____ (charity of your choice, local library, charity of their choice, etc.).
It seems appropriate for funerals, but my jury’s out on the wedding thing as it sounds like asking for money.
NtB: I asked my mom and dad what Chinese traditions are like b/c I distinctly remember our family always giving red envelopes of lucky money to the designated “greeters” of guests at the wedding banquet, typically a close family member/best man/maid of honor. We do not give gifts b/c the MOB usually includes everyday dinnerware, kitchen stuff, bed linens and things for her daughter.
It’s tradition for us and it’s expected that lucky money be given to the couple but NEVER EVER EVER mentioned on an invitation. I think you’ve written about the delicate issue of weddings and guest contributions before; I swear I read an entry on the dollar dance.
Any advice for the MOG??????
How about talking about men’s shoes sometime?
What about those of us who can’t afford the usual kitchen gadgets and things? I’ve been to plenty of weddings where the stuff on the registry was waaaay out of my price range.
I have to disagree in that I believe gifts are an obligatory part of being a wedding guest.