Thanks, Pepper :)! Would love to have gone to your wedding!
And thanks to everyone else for this thoughtful thread! Seems to me everyone here has made some good points, but I do have to say, Ziana, couldn't you look at some of those gifts you'll never use with at least some affection and memories of your special day?

No:)

I belong to one of those cultural groups for whom a wedding, usually large, and reception is the norm. We are a culture of big families and extended community relations that JJ5 was talking about even though I probably live 1,000 miles from her and it's a different culture than in her neck of the woods:)
When you are invited to a wedding here, usually it is someone you love, you've grown up with, probably gone to school for a number of years with. Otherwise, it's a relative, close or not so close, it's a relative just the same so we do have alot of weddings every year. Everyone is happy FOR you, MOST people enjoy the weddings because they are good parties and the people like each other. And the gifts are to give the new couple a boost in their new lives. You want them to do well and to start life together right, so money is a popular gift, as are things off the registry. If you can, you give more, if you can't, you give what you can. But you give the gift for the couple, for the couple's benefit. Sure, we are all happy for the couple - who isn't happy when people you care about find someone they love and with whome they will share their life with, but our wishes aren't going to help them set up their new home, help them pay for their honeymoon, or for a down payment on a house. That's what a gift is for. And, if you can't give a gift, it doesn't matter because family relations, and life relations are important to us.

Now, let's not talk about the people who come to a wedding uninvited (like adult children of my boss) because they figure it is a good party, free booze, and dinner. And all I got was a lousy kitchen rug:)

amcc, have a hug...you figured it all out as I would have, thanks.

I can't resist this thread :-) lol.
Frankie- you sound very generous. It sounds to me like this family is important to you and has been good to you. I think you got the right idea about this. $250.00 sounds like a very nice gift! I know if a family had been good to me I would do the same thing as you and be as generous as I could. Kind of like passing on the torch of kindness and generosity. It sounds like in your own way this would also be a thank you for the help you have received in the past from the parents. I can't think of a better way to do this. It's a win win situation for all of you.
Enjoy!
Annika

From other folks in other forums:

\\Money is always a good gift.. $300 sounds like a good amount especially if it's family. I agree with Linda116622, Yound couples usually do need money when the start off...


I think $300 is a good amount, especially since it is her niece. Most young couples I would say need $$ more than wine - If it were an old couple, they might need the wine more LOL.


I always give $$$, at least $50 per invited guest. So for 4 invited guests, at least $200. I got married in August, it was my 2nd marriage, I could have cared less what people gave, most people gave either $50 or $100 per couple. I have some friends without alot of $$$, I got some really pretty picture frames, a great personalized photo album....Mostly $$$, but that could be a northeast (boston).


have found that proper gifting is regional. In my area everyone gives a check, but in other parts of the country, money is considered tacky or thoughtless.

I just got married in Dallas in October 2005. About 80% of our guests had to fly to attend our wedding (and pay for their hotels). Honestly, having our guests making all the way to Dallas was the best gift. DH & I really didn't care if they gave us nothing or $500 worth of gifts/check/cash. It's not like we'll judge our friends differently depending on how much they gave us.

My best friends got married 6 years ago. I was their only witness at the city hall at the JP office, and I was the maid of honor at their wedding a few months later. What did I get them? A ceramic picture frame which I painted (from one of those paint-your-own pottery place). It cost about $25 or so. That's all I gave them. To this day, we're still best friends.

You can't judge your friends and family by how much they give you. (At least I don't.)

About 15 years ago I belonged to a quilting bee of 12 members. We met twice a month and rotated the location at each member's home. One of the members was planning her wedding. The bride to be's parents were deceased, so she, her sisters, and the groom to be and his parents were paying for the wedding. There were probably going to be about 60 guests and the reception was being held at a Kiwanis or Lion's Club hall (the future father-in-law was a member).

I casually knew the bride to be and my only contact with her was through the quilting bee. I had never met the groom to be. Lo and behold, I received an invitation to the wedding. The invitation came with a handwritten note from the bride to be. It said that if I wanted to bring a guest (my husband) to accompany me to the wedding that I should enclose a check for $50 to cover his plate.

I found this to be particularly odd and offensive, so I called another member from the quilting bee. She also received the same note. I subsequently found out that all of the members of the quilting bee received a wedding invitation with the same note. None of us attended the wedding. We did, however, give a gift. At the last meeting the bride to be attended, we gave her an envelope with the unused postage stamps that were affixed to the response cards. She never returned to the quilting bee.

Me too! I've had one through a business acquaintance connection, that "invited" me to attend a wedding lunch and asked me to "donate" to a bank account #'s (listed) for the honeymoon, in lieu of any gifts. Declined, and didn't even send a gift to that one.

sojourn - loved your story. What's happened to tact and etiquette these days?

This bride should have known better, she was in her mid 30s at the time. My relationship with her was so casual that I never understood why I received the invitation in the first place. Had that stupid note not been included, I might have felt obligated to attend if the other members of the quilting bee were going.

I do recall that our little group had purchased a number of items for her for a shower gift which we had intended to give her at the quilting bee. I did buy her a Martha Stewart cookbook for about $25, but I subsequently gave it to my Mom. Luckily, she did want that cookbook and continues to use it.

One thing that is much more common in invitations is the inclusion of registry information. I think this is really tacky- people always find out where a couple is registered.

Putting it on the invite always struck me as a note so subtle note.

How about we start a new tradition: No gifts are given at the time of the wedding, but rather on the 10th anniversary.

The 10-year point is about when all of the stuff you have wears out and you could use new AND only those who actually stay married would get gifts.

soujourn, I guess one should never be surprised by anything.

I have been to wedding or baby showers where each guest is given an envelope and asked to write their name and address on it so that the honoree can get their thank you notes out "quicker".

But of course guess that beats giving a lovely present (shower or wedding) and not ever receiving a thank you note.

I always like to give Italian Ceramics - but I'm biased! ;-)

I've never failed to get oohs and ahhs with a large hand-painted bowl even before I started importing them myself.

Hi SFImporter, Italian Ceramics are beautiful and am sure everyone that receives one from you are thrilled. Wish you had my address!!

Thanks, LoveItaly and cali. Both such kind responses!

LoveItaly, your story about the widowed Italian lady brought tears to my eyes! How touching.

Now that I think on it, my best friend of 14 years didn't give me a wedding gift. She was my maid of honor and put enormous effort in coordinating my shower/ bachelorette party and bought the dress she wore in the wedding, gave me lots of emotional support... what more could I ever ask for!

My husband and I agree that it was the best day of our lives-- because of all of the people we love being there with us having a good time.

Hi lynnejoel, thinking back on those wineglasses and the beautiful wedding wishes brought tears to my eyes too. It is not the money spent is it, it is the thought behind the present.

And lynnejoel, some years later when our daughter was about four years old this lovely Italian lady gave my daughter a special Christmas present. It was a purple toothbrush! Unusual colored toothbrushes were unheard of than. My daughter remembers that purple toothbrush to this day. Other times she gave my daughter little Barbrie doll outfits she had sewn..again my daughter remembers all of those outfits.

Very sweet and special memories.

What a sweetie!!

The entire thing with non-cash gifts is that you put yourself in the place of the receiver, not yourself. That's the essence, and IMHO many givers do just the opposite.

I've seen couples get card table sets or large items that they immediately have to discard/sell/or give away because they are shipping out or have no possible way to keep them.

mah 1980, if they didn't put their registries on the invitation I would have no idea where to start. In my area we have at least 5 to 10 places where you can register. And now with Field's going, I don't know if the girls are going to go into the Pier One, Krate & Barrel direction or to the Target or Carson (totally different) ends direction. And there are many others as well.

We had one shower just recently that a bunch of women got a little hot over because it was so hard to find the registries and she did list them, but there were 4 and one was scanty and filled. People don't have eons of time to shop for the right thing anymore in my circle, actually we never did, yet we all do want to get something that the couple can really use and is appropriate for their situation. We KNOW the people and their lifestyles, we don't KNOW the stores. I can't imagine where we would start if we didn't have the registries on the invitation here.

The bride would end up getting 3 toasters or 5 coffee makers.

And to be fair, I can think of 3 or 4 young (25-30) married women that have given or sold or returned almost all their wedding shower gifts. One I do know well, does think it all is junk, but would never say it out loud. Rude maybe, but I do admire what the true feeling is when it is expressed. Otherwise how can traditions change to become real giving or practical to the times. I think these girls' lifestyles are not going onto the home/cooking/house tracts. Maybe that's why the Italian ceramic bowl etc. or art has become so popular. It doesn't just translate into traditional homemaking use, but also into multi-use or decore.

Having been the receprient of three deceased womens' kitchen goods in the last 10 years and having an entire basement filled- which is only 1/4 th filled now, I do have a different perspective. One kept many, many things that she never took out of the box or ever used. She just didn't want them but felt too "funny" to dispose of them because they were gifts.

The others had enough for 4 families and did use some of it, but it became a burden. Both felt that feelings got hurt when they disposed of gifts, and in one case they did. So to imply all gifts can become cherished memories is not quite on track either. And the girls of today don't seem to connect "things" that way as much anymore, regardless. That is only my opinion but I do work and live with 20-25 year olds constantly, which most of you don't.

That's one of the reasons I think money now is a better gift than ever. Just the $$$$ housing market alone completely changes the realistic picture of starting a couples' life.

Gift giving tradition goes back when there weren't so many to choose from yourself and again if you made wooden spoons you were the only person in village I could get it from, so your gift was valuable no matter what because all people eat. Not anymore...

And btw I discover wonderful sute Freecycle.org where you can offer your unwanted stuff to people in YOUR area.
So I do just that. I post my 'junk' and people picking it up at my front door.
But I always feel so bad because my friends WASTED those hard earned cash.

JJ5, after we loose this batal completely we should go have a drink from my eye opening design shot glasses. LOL

Ziana, don't perceive it as a battle. It's very hard for most people to conceive beyond their own cultural or neighborhood mind sets. It's easier to attack than to consider what is frank to some is rudeness to others' sensibilities.

The most ironic parts of the whole thing are twofold. One is that we do have lots of "stuff" now- far, far more than we can use and it is almost all fairly disposable by cost/use realistically. The other is that the people who really take pride in the fact that they are liberal or open-minded to difference or diversity are often the very first to pounce on difference if it is close to home.

Nothing really changes in humanity. To the people in Nazareth, Jesus was just the carpenter's boy with a big head.

You do know that lots and lots of these young people or even middle aged people getting married now, have much higher expectations of what they use or put in their homes and with far more variety. And they are mobile and moving at the rate of once every 5 years.

And to add a lighter note- here's a good and absolutely true story.

My Mom and Dad were married 60 years in December. They were given a gas, yes natural gas, refrigerator. It worked until last year and still may be working. A NICOR gasman walked through the basement to check a line to the octapus furnace (yes, that is 70 years old and working)- when he paused in front of it and almost had a heart attack.

They called the special services within a day and had men in closed white suits carry it out. It seems the technology used then was excellent and worked forever but had some very polluting elements in it. So it was a huge biohazard. Old plastics are oftentimes as well, guys.

The hysterical thing is that we have been using this for pop/beer through 4 generations. AND that the bill went down a whole $10 a month just from the removal, because it was not cost efficient.

Against my better judgement, I am posting, lol!

We have been married for 16 years. We had a few monetary gifts, but very few. Gifts were mostly from our registry. No regrets whatsoever. We still use many of the items we received. BTW, my husband was military and so we moved a LOT.

We have only given a check once as a wedding gift, and I hated doing it. Circumstances though had us up against a wall. The couple flew from FL to ID for their wedding, and we arrived at the wedding in the middle of a move of our own, and with a 2 week old newborn. So that is my excuse and I'm sticking with it;) BTW, the couple put the money towards a washer and dryer.

Histerycal! I would never let anyone to remove it, they probably sold it to antiques...gas fridge??? I'll go google it. Thanks for the laughs. I used 'batal' word as a laughing matter, somehow everyone so stuck up here and they can't see girl is having fun!!!

What I have learned this morning:

You are rude if you give a wedding couple cash when they prefer presents.

You are rude if you give a wedding couple presents when they prefer cash.

The wedding couple is rude if they tell the guests which they prefer.

You can't win.

No, we really CAN learn something. That's why I'm putting in the effort to be understandable. Not as well as I could wish, but I'm trying.

The thing we can learn is this.

Try to think from the angle of the person who you are gifting, NOT from your angle.

NOT what you are used to by rote, what's easiest for you etc. etc. And also communicate. People who you are this close to, that would invite you- if it matters beyond just the surface, you can communicate if there is a question.

In my area they would never think it rude if you gave a non-cash gift. But that doesn't make it the norm here. There were two gifts placed on that Dec. 17's table for an 185 people wedding reception. She had already had a large Chicago shower. You can't assume across geographic or economic boundaries that far to make all weddings the "same". Or set your anger or cattiness at those with differ sensibilities or choices from yours, regardless.

Nikki,
I loved your post! You can have drink with me and JJ5 from my eye opening design shot glasses.

Lifestyles change from generation to generation. Many couples have lived together before getting married, and have acquired many of the day to day items they need or are melding households together. Also, many are getting married in their later 20s and 30s.

My parents have a beautiful silver service, china and crystal for 12 that is rarely used - wedding gifts from over 50 years ago. My parents have a formal dining room and living room and my Dad said that if he had to do it over again, he would have a home with a great room, and omit those rooms as they are only used for special occasions.

My brother and sister-in-law have been married for 15 years and also have china and crystal services for 12 that they use for special holidays. Besides the china and crystal, I remember their registry had things on it like a hammock, gas grill, ice cream maker, pasta machine, bread maker, etc. - they rarely use the pasta machine, ice cream maker and bread maker.

I inherited my paternal grandmother's silver, china and crystal years before I was married. I also rarely use these items and I have been married for 25 years. I'm glad that I have these heirlooms, as they are family treasures to me.

I think there is also some confusion as to what is a wedding gift and what is a shower gift - sometimes they cross over. We primarily received monetary gifts at our wedding - checks, cash and bonds. Now that I think of it, I believe that the majority of the monetary gifts came from family members and close friends, and the artsier and more oddball gifts came from business associates of my family. The monetary gifts were for our future, and we bought a house a year later and were able to put down a sizeable deposit with those funds.

On the flipside, what do you give a child that has had a communion, bar or bat mitzvah? Parents don't register their children at stores for these occasions? How many IPods and video games does a child need?

We are going to bat mitzvah in November.
Girls asked for a hundred dollars each.
They just said it and if we will bring $10 - no one will throw us out BUT...I see how much time and effort their parents putting into making this event I just feel like bringing what I was asked for or more.
And frankly bat mitzvahs 'required' cash gift, I never heard plastic toys were given at bat mitzvahs. Have you?
Oy vey, I can see it is coming 'kids asked for money? What about books and pencils?' I can assure you these kids have plenty of books and tons of pencils and they are Honor roll students in their school, thank you very much!

sojourn, you ventured where no man/woman has before. When someone started to mention birthday or other gifts that's when I gave up. They just aren't the same kind of gift to us or in the same social rhelm.

We all have such different perspectives. In our Catholic tradition, the five things that are sacrements are not ever confused with birthdays or whatever. The bar or bat mitzvah might be the same, and I ask when invited what is norm.

Actually we have 5 I can think of that are sacrements and that we give money gifts for or if it is non-cash it is a religious object, like a missal, gem rosary or whatever. They would be Baptism, Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, or Holy Orders. And to tell you the truth with also give money at the wakes for the family of the deceased quite often. Our Communion or Confirmation money almost always is saved for education. I don't know of anyone who got to spend theirs any other way. LOL!

Even now my kids are having home parties for about 50-75 people for their Baptisms and Communions. We've not had any Confirmations yet. My son combined his with his daughter's first cousin's and there were at least 100 people for the two kids in a tent. It was a rite of passage coupled with relgious significance.

Ziana,

There was a recent article in the NYT about how excessive bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs have gotten in the Jewish culture.

When you're making your comments about getting junk and trash, and girls requiring you to bring $100 to a bat mitzvah, you might want to realize that this is not mainstream in most cultures. It seems that in the upper class Jewish culture it is, but if your comments are representative of your social network you have to realize that this is an aberration not the norm.

Back in college, a friend from the dorm was marrying her boyfriend about a week after graduation. Of course everyone from the hall was invited to the event. It was the first of the group to get married and it was a joyous occasion.

It was your traditional Southern Baptist wedding. 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon with reception following in the fellowship hall.

At the reception, one of the girls from the dorm asked when is the champagne toast. <i>CHAMPAGNE?!?</i> egads, don't mention that word here it's a church.

For her that was a tradition, but not a tradition for others.

My brother and sister-in-law should have registered somewhere. They were combining two households and my brother threatened to start giving away stuff at the wedding. The ended up with some pretty weird stuff (according to him) and used the cash gifts to buy a storage building.

$100 gift is upper class? I assure you my dear there is nothing upper class in working your butt off to get your daughter's nice celebration. 2 people working full time saving for 10 years and voila! 3650 month x $10 calculate!

Asking for $100 is not &quot;upper class,&quot; it is classless.
I think many people like to be personal with wedding gifts (and sometimes do not want to let people know how much they could or would spend!)

I see no class involved in talking about specific amounts of money.

I was brought up that you never ask how much something costs, what a person makes, or anything to do with income.

I agree that it is completely classless, and that is why the article I read about bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs struck me as very strange.

But people that throw those types of crazy bar/bat mitzvahs most definitely feel that they have class. To them, they are &quot;upper class&quot; and that's what they think upper class people do. To the outside world, it's tacky and transparent.

And I think this is the source of Ziana's comments- she thinks showy displays of consumption are the norm (and laughing about other's well-meaning gift), while others think it's really sad.

Having a bar mitzvah is no longer the important step from boyhood to manhood. When my Dad was bar mitzvahed he and his parents when to shul on Saturday morning and came home immediately afterwards and had a cold deli lunch. My grandmother sat upstairs behind gauze curtains with the rest of the women.

My brother's bar mitzvah 32 years ago, was much more formal - printed invitations, flower arrangements at the altar, kosher pastries and deli food in the synagogue's function room primarily for the congregation and guests, with a sit down luncheon for 150 and band at a hotel, later followed by a casual catered party at my parent's home in the evening - primarily for relatives, very close friends and out of town guests. Sunday there was a brunch buffet at my parents' home for out of town relatives and guests. Even back then my brother received checks in the range of $100 to $250.

My parents never thought of having a bat mitzvah for me - they were already paying for a wedding.

I seem to think the only times that I saw all of my relatives together were at bar mitzvahs and funerals. We grew apart as we got older and didn't invite cousins to weddings.

I thought the length of explanation alone, or the spirit of understanding may influence enough that we wouldn't continue to call or classify people for a group practice. By calling someone classless from your own class perspective, you still are not getting the implied message.

Call names away- that's a great first step for understanding.

We all come from different socio-economic backgrounds. A gift of $50 from one family has the same well-meant intention as a gift of $100 or $500 from another family. It is all dependent upon how financially comfortable the giver is and the relationship the giver has with the recipient.

If our points of view and backgrounds were the same, we would be a very boring bunch.

Classless? Fine, whatever, I wasn't trying to be classy, I was talking about little kids who are close enough to tell each other what they preffer and you few went to trouble of creating a whole word for it but I don't mind.

There are few sorts of people - open and not (private kind). Private kind always think they are better and give crappy gifts and rolling eyes on cash givers. Open kind just asks their friends 'what would you like as a gift?' and seeing friend's eyes rolling - says, forget it, I am bringing usual...and everyone is happy. So my girls are open kind who will NOT make their friends buy storage for their crappy junk.