For God’s sake, by the time someone is in their 60’s, you’d think they would have learned by now the simplest of axioms that “THERE IS NO CLASSY WAY TO ASK FOR MONEY.”
Yet I suppose if you have no gumption at revealing to your wedding guests that this is more of a fund-raising gala rather than a time to demonstrate your unity to the one you love and you have no problem coming across as knuckle-walking troglodyte, then pan handle to your hearts content.
My stepdaughter is a perfectly lovely person but for some reason when she got married did something similar…asked for money instead of gifts, although it wasn’t through a cheesy poem in the invitation!
She STILL talks about the 1 or 2 people who had the gall to buy an actual present instead of give them money like she asked!!! :rolleyes:
“Shared” and “care” do not rhyme. Neither do “sure” and “for”.
I know I’m focusing on the wrong thing here, but…damn, poem people. No rhyme is better than a forced rhyme.
HelloKitty, did you try to explain to your step-daughter that she’s lucky to even be getting gifts? I understand if not. I just wasn’t sure if that was something you had been able to do.
OK, someone has to come to the defense of People Getting Married.
The marriage industry is a racket; I was pricing a graduation party while a friend was pricing out a wedding. Her price, for just the hall and food, for the same number of guests, was twice mine.
I swear, the second you say ‘wedding’, the prices double; at one place, the cake cutting charge was more than the price of a cake. And, no, they didn’t supply cakes themselves.
People want friends to share their happiness; they want more friends than will fit in their homes to share their happiness; they can not afford the obscene prices that every vendor charges for anything related to a wedding.
Sorry, I just can’t work up any outrage over this. You think registering for gifts is tacky, but you actually bothered to call someone to find out where they were registered so you could buy them something they want?
Frankly, except for a very few close friends, I wouldn’t have a clue as to what to buy someone for a gift. I’m very happy for people to make it easy to know what kind of gift would be appreciated. How does it benefit anyone for me to get them some crap that they aren’t going to like?
I also got the impression from the poem, that the gifts were to be anonymous, which I think it the opposite of tacky.
If I were you, Zsofia, I would buy them a copy of the latest edition of the biggest etiquette manual you could find and tape flag the pertinent sections with a note attached: “I think I’ve found the one gift you don’t have yet and could really use. Love, Zsofia”
Then again, I’m an asshole and care more about people not being greedy fuckers than hurting their feelings.
So, I’m just starting the wedding planning after 2 years of being engaged, and we got our first request for an invitation. How charming. :rolleyes:
You seem to be taking the stance that asking for money helps defray the cost of a wedding. If that is indeed what you are espousing, please allow me to refute that - if your wedding is more than you can afford, have a cheaper wedding.
Uh, yeah, the only REQUIRED expense to get married is the license fee. Everything else is your choice.
My wedding cake was a $20 job from Baskin Robbins (for 23 people). We cut it ourselves. Flowers were five simple corsages/boutonnieres from the grocery store floral department for bride/groom, 2 attendants, and my mother. Also about $20. We did not mention the word “wedding” when making either of these purchases.
And hey, whaddya know, we’re still married.
Miss Manners says an afternoon cake-and-punch reception is just as classy as the full-bore evening dinner-and-dancing spectacle, and eminently affordable.
That’s pure gold.
It’s been a long time since I’ve actually laughed out loud at a post here.
Damn…
Well … duh.
But even guest have certain expectations about a wedding reception, and people get sucked in.
Not quite, if I am reading this correctly.
Registering is not tacky- it can actually be quite helpful. Including registry information with the invitation is very tacky and should never be done. One contacts the mother of the bride, mother of the groom, maid/matron of honor, etc, to find out where someone is registered.
Shameless money grabs are always in poor taste.
My grand-nephew sent me an invitation to his wedding. It was the first time I had heard from him since the invitation I got to his high school graduation. I haven’t seen or talked with him since he was nine and his mother has called exactly once. I didn’t respond either time.
His great-grandmother who lives in assisted care sent him $100 when he graduated from high school. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge her gift.
Grandchildren never call at Thanksgiving, Christmas or our birthdays. Some manage to show up on their birthdays or send invitations to graduation. We could be dead for months and family would never know it. We’ve never argued. They just don’t think about us. (Ages 17-21)
I recently got an email from a friend of ours asking us to come celebrate our mutual friend’s birthday. I’ll call her Linda. Here are some (edited) emails I received:
“This is your official invite to come celebrate (Linda’s) birthday with us on Monday, November 17th at the (local restaurant) at 7pm. As you know, she likes door prizes, and prizes of all sorts, so prizes will most definitely not be turned away. In fact, presents are as vital as presence in this case! We would like to make reservations, so please R.S.V.P./regret, but preferably not the latter, because that’s not as much fun for the rest of us.”
This was followed by an email from another friend:
“(Linda) and I discussed a stock the bar party. She loves Kettle One but will accept any hard liquor or wine. She even said she needs to start drinking again because her tolerance is too low. What??? Let’s help her kick it up a notch.”
Followed by yet another email from a third friend:
“Ladies, (Linda’s) party is almost upon us. I believe 13 people will be attending. I think we should try to go in on a Margaritor, and the alcohol (of course)that goes with it. I can pick one up at Kohl’s for around $200. If we get crazy we get some glasses too, let me know what you all think. I know she needs to get her drink on.”
:eek:
BTW, this friend will be 34. She is a SAHM with 2 kids. She plays tennis just about every day at a local country club. She has a housekeeper.
Granted, she’s a lot of fun and would give you the shirt off her back for you, but this whole dinner is just so appallingly inappropriate that it’s colored my opinion of her a bit. The only thing I can gather is that she was raised in a barn.
Flash back to when my cousin got married and my aunt (I’m sure it has to be her) wrote an equally lame rhyme about a money tree, photo copied onto green or red paper for season colors, and passed out at a family get-together to save postage.
As it was a second marriage for both, so we skipped the cash, but did bring rolls for the pot-luck dinner (no booze, it was a Mormon gathering) and made snide comments among ourselves about how long this one was going to last (about 2 years, IIRC). They got married on Dec. 31st so he could claim her children as deductions for that year.
I think everything must have only cost $20 for them, and had the party at the church. I think it’s really cool to have a pot-luck party if you have a ton of relatives and not money, but it crosses into crass when asking for cash.
The aunt was really unhappy because his first marriage was in the Philippines and no on gave them gifts. This was the same aunt who told me that she’d play the piano (one song) for the little ceremony I had at my first wedding, and that that would be her gift to us.
I agree with most of what you’ve written. When my now-husband and I started looking at getting married, there was very little we could afford.
We eloped. It was us and the JOP. We went out to lunch afterwards (just the 2 of us; having him along would have been weird).
Yes, we missed out on having people there. No, we didn’t end up getting anything in the way of gifts. Yes, sometimes I look at other people’s beautiful wedding photos and feel a deep pang of envy. I do sometimes wish I’d had a lovely dress and a lovely cake. But we couldn’t afford it and we didn’t have it. It would have been stupid to go into debt for a wedding, and it would have felt tacky for 2 grown adults to ask their parents to foot the bill, let alone the guests.
There are ways in between what we did and what the wedding racket wants you to pay, but this was what worked out best for us in our lives at that time.
Zsofia this post makes me homesick for South Carolina. A brand of humour typical of the south, I can even hear your slightly syrupy drawl. LOL
Zoe, I’m sorry for that. 
And I think I’ve been a bad granddaughter when I don’t call at least once a month… which reminds me I have to do that tomorrow.
In regards to registries… wait, so nobody should even said where they are registered? Not giving a list of all the details, just a sentence saying “We’re registered at so and so.”.
Just wondering, a few of my friends got married in school. I (and most of our group) had no contact whatsoever with the families of those getting married, we found out where they were registered because the brides to be told us.
I had a situation last year that I didn’t exactly know how to handle. My boss used to be a plain ol’ co-worker who I was friendly with. I went on to a couple different accounts and then she called me to say she wanted to hire me on her team.
So now she’s my boss (but used to be a friend). She had a destination wedding that I wasn’t invited to, and they requested no gifts (both on their second marriage, both owned houses, both have all the stuff they’ll ever need).
I didn’t get her anything, partly because now that I’m her employee, I didn’t know if I should, and partly out of respect for her request for no gifts. I did feel that possibly I should have done something, like a donation to the charity she volunteers for. I still don’t know if I handled it correctly.
A card with a heartfelt sentiment of congratulations is never inappropriate.
after reading the “poems”, i realized that having people just tuck money into a tree or well or whatever without knowing who gave it means…
no thank you notes!
well what do you know. you get a bunch of cash, you get to spend it, you don’t have to write thank you notes.
unless there is a one size fits all “poem” that gets sent to everyone.