Is It Time to Stop Asking for Wedding Gifts?
When people you love find love, and get married, they deserve a wedding gift as a token of your happiness. Right? Sure. But do they deserve to dictate exactly what you should get for them?
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That has become a matter of debate—especially as more couples than ever are already cohabitating when they tie the knot, and are most likely already the proud owners of a toaster, blender, coffeemaker and cabinet full of dishes.
In reaction, couples are getting more creative with their wedding gift registries— requesting everything from matching sleeping bags to down payments for dream homes. At least they're asking for gifts they feel they need, but should they be asking for gifts at all?
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“While suggestions are nice, even registry lists are just suggestions, and the choice of a gift is always up to the giver,” the New York Times's Peggy Post offered as advice in a recent Wedding Q&A. She was responding to an exasperated woman who wondered if it was okay to donate to a charity in honor of a couple who had actually requested gift certificates to pricey restaurants. (The answer was yes.)
Some couples do request donations to charities they support—including friends of mine, two women, who asked that guests donate to the Human Rights Campaign to support marriage equality. There are actually entire websites dedicated to assisting couples in soliciting donations, like the I Do Foundation and JustGive.org. And even President Obama got into the action during his reelection campaign, setting up an Obama event registry (and inspiring plenty of vitriol, natch).
“Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?” the website asked. “Let your friends know how important this election is to you—register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It's a great way to support the President on your big day. Plus, it's a gift that we can all appreciate—and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl."
But what about when what couples really want—and often need—is money?
“My fiance and I will both be 38 when we get married, we already live together, and pretty much have most of the things traditionally found on a gift registry,” read a recent opinion piece in News.Com.Au. “We don't need a toaster or cutlery. But what we could really do with is a little help paying for our honeymoon (Malaysia and the Maldives, here we come). That's OK, isn't it? I mean getting money is the norm these days. I have been to four weddings in the last two years and all have politely asked for cash.”
If you want to make friends giggle while they’re writing their check, you could enlist the help of clever couple Gemma and Marcus Daborn, of London, who offer couples a way to beg for money gracefully. They launched the Reverse Wedding List website last year, marketing an idea that the two tried out at their own wedding, in 2010.
“A reverse wedding list is where guests are invited to buy gifts from you rather than for you,” Gemma told the Daily Mail. “Like most couples, we had lived together for several years, we had a flat crammed full of stuff and, if anything, we needed to de-clutter, not be bought more toasters and blenders.”
But they still had a need to add to their coffers. “What we ideally wanted was money for our honeymoon, but we felt awkward asking our friends and family for cash,” she explained. “So we took all the household items we no longer needed and listed them and invited guests to buy them from us.” Prices started at just $20 for items like already-watched DVDs.
Now, on their Reverse Wedding List, engaged couples can create lists of items they want to rid themselves of, and also upload photos and suggest prices in the name of decluttering, collecting cash and not offending friends and family.
Think of it as the polar opposite to the approach of the now-infamous bridezilla who wrote perhaps the most greedy wedding-gift rant of all time in June. In a jaw-dropping text-message battle, that sparked widespread Internet debate recently, one bride ridiculed a wedding guest who dared to give a carefully created gift basket of snacks.
“If anything you should be embarrassed for being so cheap and embarrassing yourself walking in with a gift basket," wrote the bride. In response, the gift-giver called her message "the most inconsiderate, immature, greedy, and asinine thing I have ever had the displeasure of seeing."
It's clear the business of wedding gifts has become a social minefield. Is a matching sleeping bag, or even a $100 bill, worth all the drama?
Related:
Bridezilla's Angry Email to Bridesmaids Goes Viral. We Respond to Her Demands (and cc: Internet)
In Defense of the Wedding Gift Registry
How Much Should You Spend on a Wedding Gift?
