I like this. Maybe I can sneak it in before the gift is mailed…
For the record, Ms. D_Odds will avoid any fuss or potential bad-mouthing within the family, and will give money. I will go along with her, as I’m not quite that stupid. Almost, though. It is her side of the family…me, I’m more than willing to tick off my family. I consider it one of life’s little pleasures.
This is more an exercise in creativity - Johnny Cash albums are fantastic in this regard (“Here’s your Cash! BWAH HAH HA HA!”)
MiL and FiL (who live with us) will be attending, and were included on the invitation. But I’ve seen many a couple who do this, simply out of greed.
Hmmm, they’re getting the in-laws out of the house for a week. Maybe monetary renumeration is in order…
Because it implies that you’d rather have their presents, than their presence, at your wedding. 
Did you actually include this on the wedding invitation, or were you passing along information to people who asked?
I’m getting married in nine days. I agree that it’s completely and totally stupid that etiquette dictates you aren’t allowed to tell where you are registered in the invitations. I was shocked that this is the rule. We invited 180 people to the wedding. Now, they all need to call us up to ask where we are registered? Why can’t we just put it in the damn letters we are already sending!?
Having said all that, rules are rules, and not wanting to offend anyone, we went ahead and included the registry information in the save the date, but not the actual wedding invitation. This is OK as far as etiquette goes, from my admittedly limited understanding of it. I’d still prefer cash from all the guests, of course, but it’s rude to ask for it so I can only hope they are a bright enough crowd to figure it out.
I’m not expecting to get any actual gifts at the wedding. I might, but that would be odd. When you buy from a registry, they ship them right to your house.
The couple from the OP’s story were rude to ask for cash. But, it would be exponentially more rude to do any of these petty responses that people are suggesting. They asked for cash. Give them cash. Very simple. If it helps, you can look yourself in the mirror and exclaim ten times “I’m a better person than them. They violated etiquette rules and I did not.”
I find it baffling that people send gifts to people they do not know or have never met just because said person is having a wedding/birthday/promotion/whatever. To me gifts are something to be exchanged between close friends and relatives - I’d rather spend some time finding something neat related to their interests that they would enjoy, as opposed to just buying something off a laundry list of wants.
Just a couple of quick clarifications:
(1) Our entire household was invited. As stated above, MiL & FiL will be attending. MiL stays in close contact with her left coast relatives.
(2) While I’ve never met these people, Ms. D_Odds has. It has been a few years since the last (but not only) visit (funeral in the Phillipines 2 or 3 years ago, if memory serves) though.
(3) I always give cash (or AmEx gift cheques), because I hate shopping and am lazy and generally don’t think about it until the day before the wedding. Fortunately (in an example that good manners still live (but not in me)), this is the first wedding invitation I’ve received in two decades of adult life that has brazenly asked for cash.
I don’t have access to the invitation during the week (working away from home) and I’d rather not ask Ms. D_Odds (it’s bad enough I make fun of the tackiness and offer retaliatory suggestions). If the thread is still active and I remember, I’ll post over the weekend.
But I’m not. I’m evil, mean-spirited, small-minded and vindictive…and loving every second of it.
Huh? The vast majority of guests at a typical wedding would know or at least have met the bride and groom.
Who are you to better know their interest than the couple in question? If you know where a couple is registered and you still go ahead and buy another gift, that is just rude. At least include a gift receipt so that they can return it.
Because if they were good friends I’d already know what they needed or wanted. But like I said, that’s just how I (well and my friends) do gift giving. I think my point is, I wouldn’t be buying gifts for people that I don’t know well enough to know their interests, wants, or needs - of course I also wouldn’t be attending their weddings, though it is very flattering to be invited.
You’d think that, wouldn’t you?
(Obviously, you’re not aquainted with the " I may in some vague way be related to this person, or I may have a cousin related to them in some sort of vague way, and if I invite them, they’ll give me another present, so I better spend the 50 cents to score big on a super delux chrome toaster." school of thought. Oh how I wish I were making this up.)
I would agree about asking for money, but last I checked, gifts are pretty much assumed. I had initially resisted the idea of registering, but when my wife and I announced our engagement, practically the next thing people would say was “Where are you going to register?” When we answered we hadn’t thought that far, or gave some other deferential comment of that sort, they would advise us on what the best stores to register at would be. After a while we were like “Fine! Crate&Barrel! Go crazy!”
In fact, I think its a point of etiquette that guests invited to the wedding should bring a gift commensurate with the cost of the meal. I think it’s stupid, but I think all these rules are stupid. I thought dancing the Foxtrot while 125 people stared at me was pretty stupid too, but I survived, and actually managed to have fun. One of the things that surprised most about the whole wedding process was that people actually wanted us to tell them what to give us. We completed the ritual by mailing out something like 65 individual and personalized “Thank You” cards, and every single one of them had to have something deeply thoughtful about how it was great having them at the wedding, how we’re getting so much use out of the gift already, please visit when you’re in town again, yada yada yada, etc., so forth. I know it sounds petty, but it was work, man! Registering, telling everybody where we registered, making the perfect list of incrediby-fun-and-useful-yet-inexpensive gifts, writing heartfelt thank-you’s to people people on her side of the family who I couldn’t even put a face to the name once the matrimonial whirlwind was over.
This wedding thing is a production. A carefully choreographed, highly ritualized, etiquette-and-tradition-laden production that left my wife and I quite literally exhausted once we finished putting it all together. Girsts appear to be an intrinsic part of the production, and to some extent, we earned them for putting on the best party I every imagined. I didn’t know I had it in me, and I didn’t need to. If I ever had to do it over (which I hope to the freakin’ gods I will never need to contemplate), I’ll either elope or hire a wedding planner.
But yeah, asking for money is just gauche.
We are their friends. The gift is something we want to give the couple. The registery is provided as a courtesy to guests who would like to give a gift but might be having trouble picking out something. It is by no means a mandated list of gifts from which you must select.
The whole point is you invite people to a wedding or reception because they’re people you care about with who you want to share your joyous union with. So you plan a party that’s within your means to share your happiness with your friends. It is not a tit-for-tat, I’ll give you a meal so you must buy me presents thing. That is the ulitmate in crass, basically selling tickets to your celebration.
If people choose to give you a gift, it’s a freakin’ gift, not their entry into the party. Accept anything you might receive graciously because it’s a gift.
I’ve never given cash and never would. I’d rather get a couple something off a registry, and if they register at a place like Target or Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I tend to prefer getting cooking-related stuff.
However, when it is painfully clear the groom doesn’t want any part of new pots and pans and sheets and fuzzy toilet seat covers, I always zoom in on the things he obviously registered for (perhaps against the bride’s wishes). I have bought Nintendo Gamecube controllers for a groom who registered for them, and best of all, the big Castle Greyskull from the Masters of the Universe toy line for an action figure collecting groom.
Heh.
We did get some triple whammys in our crowd. We invited a few couples we don’t know very well because they are close friends of my parents. They are my parents friends (bling, bling!) and don’t really know us well… A few of them ended up getting a gift for the bridal shower, than another gift for the wedding, and not coming to the wedding itself, thereby not costing us the price of a plate! Of course, we didn’t plan it this way. My parents had been to the weddings of their kids, or at least gotten invited, and did the same thing. What goes around comes around!
I did indeed, and learning that lesson was thankfully a lot less expensive than it could have been.
I did eventually get married, though obviously not to the woman I wrote about above. But I’m pleased to report that my bride was both surprised and delighted by all the gifts we received when we got married. (Well, I was too, really.) We followed etiquette and said nothing about any gifts before the wedding, nor were we expecting any–and this made it a little more special when we did receive something. Some gifts were objects, and some were money, but all were something of a surprise, though gratefully received.
And I’ll add that we sent thank-you notes for each gift too. Something that I hope CiL, for all his or her crassness so far, doesn’t forget either.
If everybody did this it would be chaos. The poor couple would end up with twenty identical frying pans and not a single plate that they actually needed in the first place. (Or twenty Castle Greyskulls!)
The couple knows what they want. That’s why they registered for it. For you to get something else is rude.
BTW, do you get stuff that is already on the registry so it’ll be a dupe, or do you just not check at all?
You are arguing against a straw man. Nobody’s saying that a gift is required for entry into the party.
Dictataing the gifts you get is rude. A gift is not an obligation. It’s something the guest would like the couple to have. Granted, if you want to buy them a houseware type item, the wedding registry is very useful and that’s what it’s there for. On the other hand, if you want to hand knit them an afgan or assemble a scrapbook of shared moments or get a customized item that relates to a shared hobby, that’s perfectly fine and is the guest’s choice. It’s not in the archive so I can’t link it but this is the Miss Manners party line.
I am vehement on the gift isn’t an entry fee 'cause I see it all the time. People who feel if they don’t get a gift that equals the cost of the meal, they’ve been “shorted”. Which misses the whole idea of what a wedding is about.
I agree with this totally in principle, but in practice, man, some things you just do. Why? Damned if I know. I’m picking my battles on this etiquette stuff, and the Wedding battle is one I’m not gonna fight. It’s one day out of somebody’s life that supposed to be just so. Have a good time, and don’t sweat the reasons behind these incredibly bizarre displays and gestures. Play it by the book, and, you know, “maaaake someone happy!” (It’s very important…)