Love for the lobes
By Never teh BrideThe best pre-wedding gifts I received were not linens or cake pans. I liked the jewelry best. Well meaning relatives gave me necklaces, bracelets, and earrings they thought I might like to wear on my wedding day with the caveat that I shouldn’t feel obligated to wear them. And I didn’t, because I’d already picked out my own custom jewelry.
The jewelry I received didn’t end up going to waste, however. I wore some to the rehearsal dinner and some to the post-wedding brunch. Some I wore way before the wedding and some didn’t get worn until after I was wed, but all of it got worn. So if you know a bride who likes shiny stuff, don’t assume she has all the jewelry she needs. Whether or not she wears your gift when she says her, “I dos,” you can rest assured your gift will be much appreciated.
All of the lovely earrings above are available from Eve’s Addiction, and all are reasonably priced so you don’t have to break the bank buying holiday gifts. No, you can do that when it comes time to shell out for the shower or wrap something up for the wedding. According to this article, weddings are becoming “a serious pocket drain” for guests. I tend to agree–between gifts, travel, accommodations, and the necessary new outfit, other people’s nuptials are expensive!
December 6th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Weddings ARE a serious pocket drain for guests, espcially those well-meaning couples who decide upon “destination” weddings. I can’t tell you how many weddings that I would have LOVED to attended, but was unable to due to financial reasons because they were being held in Italy or Scotland or Lake Tahoe for no other reason except the couple thought it would be “pretty” and “different.”
*sigh*
When did weddings become all about being “different”? I miss the weddings that were about having your family and closest friends share an afternoon or an evening with you, not about who can throw the most extravagant, otheworldly wedding extravaganza.
December 6th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I do wonder, K, how many more guests would have attended my own wedding had I gotten hitched somewhere else. Unfortunately, The Beard and I have family and friends in Washington state, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, and elsewhere…we even had family in Europe! We ended up choosing Florida because I wasn’t sure my dad could afford plane fare for my six siblings or that my paternal gram would be keen to travel.
I agree with you where the fanciful Italian or Scottish weddings are concerned, but people’s friends and relatives tend to be spread out nowadays. Does one get married in the groom’s mother’s hometown or the bride’s father’s hometown? The bride’s mother lives a thousand miles away from both of those locales. What if the bride and groom and their closest friends live nowhere near either place?
Having your family and closest friends share an afternoon fete is tough when they are spread out all over the globe!
December 6th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I’m currently living and working in London, and while I wouldn’t change my present location for anything, it does make weddings harder to get to. I find that I have to prioritize them - for whom do I wish to spend over $1000 when you factor in airfare, a hotel and a gift (to say nothing of my own attire) and for whom do I wish to take time off work? I choose to live here of course, but it does complicate my ability to share in other people’s celebrations! Do people who don’t have as far to travel also have to make these same prioritizations?
December 6th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
I was lent some jewelry for my wedding, but the only gifts I received were some earrings from my fiance. These lovely ones from Bo JC that had been featured in Martha Stewart’s Weddings magazine, in an article about pearls. I pointed them out to my fiance, who sneakily looked in the magazine later to find where to buy them and then gave them to me for my birthday.
http://www.twistonline.com/Detail.aspx?ID=2439
I did not wear them at my wedding though, the gold didn’t go with my gown, I wore a pair of simple white gold and pearl drops I already owned. However, I’ve otherwise worn them constantly. Until I lost one. That was traumatic. But BoJC and Twist were nice enough to make and sell me a single earring and now I have my favorite earrings back!
And, yes, weddings can be a financial strain for guests. We briefly thought of a destination wedding, but we knew many of our relatives wouldn’t be able to afford it, and we wanted them to be there. So we had an afternoon wedding on Long Island, where we both grew up and still live. In the afternoon for a lot of reasons, one being that our guests would not want to get a hotel room instead of driving home late at night.
December 6th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Hey! I grew up on Long Island!
July 8th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The earrings are very pretty, but I found better at Eves’ competitor site, http://www.moonriverpearls.com. I may be biased since I work there, but the styles are gorgeous, shipping is free and the quality is far better than anything out there.