The Biggest Day

Everyone has a different take when it comes to wedding gifts. Some people think that gift registries are tacky, and other people think that asking for money is classless. I don’t think you can possibly please everyone.

We have registered at a department store for our wedding, mainly due to the experience we had at our engagement party. We told everyone: no gifts necessary. We’d been living together for years and really didn’t need anything, so we asked for donations for the Humane Society in lieu of any presents. However our guests still turned up with gifts – loads of them.

We ended up with (no word of a lie) 84 wine glasses, 24 champagne flutes and eight new platters. No-one needs that many wine glasses!!

To be honest, the main reason we wanted a registry was for interstate and distant relatives – you know, those people that you have to invite because they’re family, but that you’ve only ever seen four times in your entire life, at other people’s weddings. They have no idea what your tastes are or what you would like, so they invariably gift you something that suits their tastes… I had visions of another 84 wine glasses.

So for our wedding, we registered for some things that we need –pots and pans, quality sheets and fluffy towels – and a handful of things that we would like, including a coffee machine and a duck-feather bed spread. We included a range of price points, from $10 to $200, and we thought there was no possible way we would piss anyone off.

We were wrong.

A friend of the family, Noni, was offended when she received our gift registry note in with the invitation. Like, really annoyed. She called my parents and screeched, “What is this all about? I’ve never heard of anything like this before!”

A few minutes of venting later, my mother realised precisely why Noni was so mad. Noni had never heard of a gift registry before. She had received our gift registry card with our unique number printed on it, and she thought that the number related to the exact present that we wanted her to buy.

She thought we had selected, for example, the $90 sheets for Noni to buy, and the $80 skillet for uncle Richard to buy, and the $180 coffee machine for Donna and Jim to buy, etc… So, she thought she would turn up to the store, be directed towards one specific product, and that would have to be her gift to us.

She must have thought we were so rude! Can you imagine actually doing that?! I’m sure it has been done before. However, my mother quickly set her straight.

I guess it proves my point that no matter what you do, someone is likely to take issue with it. My Croatian friend, Tanja, believes that gift registries are just plain tacky, no matter what your reasoning behind it. In her culture, it is much more acceptable to ask for cash. I think asking for cash is inappropriate, on the other hand, because it almost seems like you’re asking for them to pay a price per head to ahead your wedding! Conversely, I have no problem with people asking for gift vouchers, so figure that one out…

At the end of the day it really doesn’t bother me, as I know that no-one ever intends to offend you with their wedding invitation! There was one note I once received that I thought was a bit much. Two years ago, I was invited to a work colleague’s wedding. We weren’t particularly close, but friendly enough. On the back of the wedding invitation was printed the following – I RSVP’d no:

We’ve been living together for several years
and have already built our home.
In lieu of a gift, we would appreciate a cash donation
towards our honeymoon!
Please deposit money
into the following bank account:
xxxx xxxx
Don’t forget to include your name
as the reference on the deposit slip.