Be Excellent To Each Other

Does anyone else think that wedding lists are now the biggest piss take in the world, as 99.9% (sub, please check) of couple getting married have lived together for years so have the stuff they need for a house. Nowadays, it's just an excuse to get a whole bunch of high priced items that they only want, and impulse added to the list on whatever shop it was. Takes the piss it does. The fuckers.

From now on, I'm going to adopt people getting married a donkey, or somesuch.

You could always send me something first and I can tell you how I feel about it, if it helps.

I hate wedding lists. On the best day of my life, I do not want to unwrap a sodding frying pan.

Yes. That's why we asked for money.

We didn't have a wedding list, and just asked people to either not bother or to buy something interesting, their choice. We did all the present unwrapping the next day with various family members present, including a 90 year old agéd auntie. Of course, one of my close chums gave us a box within which was a tube of witchhazel and a spanking paddle.

"Er, it's a sort of flyswat, Edna. The cream's for if you miss and hit yourself".

This is why we haven't got a wedding list. If people want to contribute, we've asked for a donation towards our honeymoon. We won't ever go on a holiday like that again.

Ange, you're marrying an axe murderer!

I'm happy giving people some money for their honeymoon, if it goes towards a decent bottle of wine with a meal, for example, and not to be stuffed into a stripper's G-String at 4am in a seedy Vegas bar.

We asked for Euros for our holiday..

We're going to a good friend's wedding, which had the instruction 'no boxed gifts' on the invite.

I had to Google it as I hadn't seen this before, and it means that the couple are asking for money. I've not known this before but it is apparently a standard phrase on Indian wedding invitations, and there are set amounts of money that you should give 'if you give less than __________ you will be thought of as cheap'. They've sent out 400+ invites, so I hope it's not all given in cash I'm glad I Googled it though, or I'd have given them a blender in a carrier bag.

I would get them a cat... as they don't come in a box..

Shitting hell, mimi, that's awesome idea.

If the minimum amount is a tenner, that's £4k+ they are up on already. I reckon average would be £40, so that's a cool £16k.

Or do they?

OR do they?

OR DO they?

OR DO THEY?

I don't think it's that unusual any more. Traditional wedding gifts were often things to help the couple get set up in their home, most people live together for a while before getting married now so they generally already have all that stuff. However I don't think they'll be making a profit, a wedding with 400 guests probably costs a fair bit.

£51 seems to be the average for not-so-close friends, £101 for close friends, fmore from. I said I didn't even know 400 people, let alone 400 people to invite to a wedding, and she said neither did she, but you have to invite the whole extended family, some of whom she has never met. The fiancé is a white guy who has never been to an Indian wedding before, and seems blissfully ignorant of the scale and magnitude of the occasion at the moment. Wha ha ha!

Paid for by the bride's family.

I'm going to look into this.

Wait a minute, this isn't up in Bolton way, is it? I ask as the wedding I was at on Friday had a couple matching that description.

With a kitten inside, natch.

Yep, my friend's family are paying for the wedding

Suddenly the grasping money grabbing makes sense:

Goldfish, matey, goldfish.

I've totally been going for the wrong market.

No, it's down in Wembley. All five of my closest female Indian friends have married white men, though it doesn't seem that common in general in the community at all, and they don't 'know' each other - well, they do to say 'hi' to, but they are not close. Another friend's father joked that it was my fault. I'm not sure how much he was joking, though.

If you're going to ask for money as a wedding gift from people you may as well just have said "we'd like you to come to the wedding, but invites are £40 a pop, £60 on the door".

"Sorry mate, no trainers. I know, mate, it's just not me that makes the rules, company policy, innit?"

Brown chicks, white sticks!

No babies or infants at my wedding. I hate their nonstop crying during the important bits of the ceremony.

Weddings are about family and friends all being together. I don't wish to subscribe to your newsletter Kern.

I was thinking about this for most of Friday. Removal of infants and children, mostly. Not weddings.

They're also not for begging for cash. Why should I give you money just because you got some woman pregnant and had to marry her?

But it's somehow different when people have lists of gifts that they'd like instead?

Good Alistair Darling impression, there.

I find both wedding lists and asking for money equally repugnant.

It's hardly a gift if you've basically been press-ganged into buying it/giving it to them.

I dislike that too. It's less blatantly money-grubbing, but still.

Which is why we've asked if people want to make a donation, they can. We're not forcing anyone to.

Of course as soon as you've mentioned it, you've made people feel obliged to.

But you have to do a list... or you could end up with anuthing

I don't know- I guess wedding lists make sense if there are to be loads of guests attending - at a wedding like my friends', with 400+ couples attending, you would end up with 50 toasters.

I'm not so sure about the wedding lists that prescribe the make and model of each item, though. My cousin and his wife are extremely well off and the taste of their wedding list reflected that - £200 chopping board - stuff like that. They even had individual tea spoons priced at £24 - when I was buying a gift for my Nan online to give to them from their shopping list I did note that there were still 7 of 8 teaspoons left to buy, meaning that someone was giving a single teaspoon as a gift, it being the most affordable item before a rather big 'leap'. If I had been invited (grew up together in the same house for 11 years, but still...) I would have had to have bought them a teaspoon. At least they'd have had two.

But, maybe, a list saying things like 'we could really do with'
a toaster
a large blanket
goldfish bowl
blender

makes sense.

*shrugs* That's not really our problem. It's not like we're going to cross people off our Christmas card list if they don't give us any cash.

I suggest you say that on the invite.

Thing is that we had so many people asking we just set one up with John Lewis to stop the complaining. We were advised to put a good spread of stuff on there so I did. I was genuinely touched and amazed with what we ended up with actually

The advantage of doing it that way is that JL will manage it all for you, you won't end up with a lot of crap you don't need and at least it's good quality stuff.

I wasn't comfortable with the whole idea of a list but in retrospect it was a good idea and what I was told was that people want to give something that is useful.

We didn't oblige people to use it by the way and not everyone did. JL also offer a gift voucher option which is going to prove very handy when we shortly move house.

This made me grin like a loony for some reason.

The only thing I'll say about cash is that a distant relation did this and although we had no problem there was muttering from the older people who wanted to give something physical. Remember that part of the gift is the "giving".

Probably because you are prettier than she, mimi.

I do feel more or less obliged to give a cash gift at the wedding I am attending. Maybe that is partly because of the wording 'no boxed gifts'. As in 'there will be gifts. Bring gifts. Not in boxes. (ie. bring money)' but it is just standard practice in Indian weddings recently, from what I have been reading. I think part of the problem is not knowing how much to give - how much will other guests be giving, will the couple find this amount a bit pathetic/too extravagant. With my friend's wedding this problem is lessened by the fact that there seem to be 'traditional' amounts (in inverted commas as I think this is a recent phenomenon), but still, I actually wanted to make them a wedding quilt, something that would take time and love and hopefully be cherished, rather than just cash, but never mind

Bit late for that.

Of course, now you know you're not invited. I was trying to find a way to tell you, so this is as good a way as any.

MR GASPY FACE.

I have NEVER been so insulted in my ENTIRE LIFE.

I can't come, anyway.

Had the (SNIP! - Ed)

i say between 100-200% of the cost of the wedding per person, depending of how close you are to the person. Here usually the weddings cost between 70 and 100€ per person, so i would give something 150€. or 80-100€ if i was unemployed.

But don't take my advice seriously because i'm a bit cheap.