Weddings and Gifts
IP and I have received our first gift in the wedding sweepstakes (as it were). The gift came from a couple who is friends with IP’s parents. What was amazing to me, besides the fact that we already have a gift in hand? My name was spelled correctly! Yippee!
That aside, the gesture was very sweet but it highlights something that IP and I have discussed seriously prior to and after our engagement: we have a “no gift” rule for the wedding. We realize we can’t control the little gifts that come to us during the engagement period, but when RSVPing at our wedding website, guests will see that we are not requesting gifts, are not registered, and believe that their “presence is present” enough for us. Some people are going to be making long treks to see us getting married (and partake in the booze and food that we offer that day) – we don’t want them to make an extra expenditure because the purpose of our wedding isn’t a gift grab. It’s for us to, you know, get married.
I’ve seen pretty bad registries in my day. The Wedding of the Century (TM) featured a registry that had personal DVD players and ping pong tables – I got them towels, I think. I understand that some couples add big-ticket items to their registries so that the bridal party or family members can contribute to one huge gift, but this registry had nary the gift under the $50 mark. The weddings I’ve attended recently prominently feature Williams-Sonoma goods, and I know that neither half of the couple is into cooking. Almost every single registry I’ve had to scan has included a KitchenAid mixer – and don’t forget to get the lovely couple the extra attachments so that they can make their own wedding cake! All in all, I’ve always resented my friends for their registries because they always seem so incommesurate with who they are as individuals and as a couple. I am not getting you a KitchenAid mixer when I know I can bake circles around you with a hand beater, my dear friend.
While a wicked part of me would love to return the favor (and my mother is horrified that I won’t stick it to my friends with some Williams-Sonoma items of my own), the plain fact is that IP and I don’t need anything. We’re pretty much set. We both have good salaries (please let them change soon, though – we’ve worked out asses off), we have an overstocked kitchen thanks to moving in together, and we really want to avoid any kind of gifts that might lead people to believe that they have any say whatsoever in the wedding details. If you’re thinking parents, bingo. Any offer to contribute to the reception is always dangerous because you cede control of decisions and (possibly) the guest list, and that is what IP and I are trying to avoid. We’re in our 30s and prefer to think of ourselves as self-sufficient. The wedding is to highlight the legalization, as it were, of our companionship and love, not to start life out as adults. Adults we already are even if we sometimes act like kids while on vacation.
My philosophy in wedding planning is from Shakespeare’s Henry V (the opening line of that play, coincidentally, was also this blog’s first tagline):
O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate,
you and I cannot be confin’d within the weak list of a country’s
fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that
follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults . . . (V.ii)
That’s not to say that IP and I are great kings; we’re obviously not, but the quote is to say that we are the makers of manners of this shindig, and we’ll be damned if the find-faults (read: the wedding-industrial complex, not our poor guests) push us towards what we don’t want. Our no gifts request is probably going to get people buzzing, and I’ve been warned that such a policy has the potential to offend. I don’t doubt this because a lot of people like to give; I’m like this myself, but if a couple specifically asked for our presence only, I think both IP and I would be happy to acquiesce. There will be people who give us gifts, anyway (and one can only hope that we won’t be lugging an unneeded KitchenAid mixer back to DC), and we’ll send polite thank you notes and be gracious. You sometimes can’t stop a generous spirit no matter how sincere you are in explaining that all you want is for them to be there that day.
Those obligatory invites, on the other hand . . . well, that’s another post for another day.
