If you don’t think of a wedding as an opportunity to celebrate and help a couple establish their life together, then yes, you really are culturally unaware/outside, because that’s traditionally what a wedding has been about. And yes, times have changed to the point that we can acknowledge that 12 toasters are less helpful than a variety of gifts, so we have things like registries, and even things like “in lieu of gifts, if you wish you can donate to these charities” which friends of mine have done and I was actually not in the least offended that they acknowledged that money exists and is occasionally a useful gift.
Making information available is not the same thing as begging for gifts.
Then why would you say “So, if a friend of yours asked you to babysit/pet sit/drive them to pick up their car from the mechanics/help them move a couch, you’d tell them to fuck off because they’re not needy enough? Is that what friendship means to you?”
Those are cases of people who need or want favors and ask for them. I will happily provide such favors.
In fact, if a friend came to me and asked for HELP preparing for a wedding, I would be pleased to arrange flowers, cook food, get a quick online certification and officiate, help search for a venue, test out cakes (I’d be VERY happy to do this!), or anything else I could do. I’d even bake the cake or sew a dress, and I do have the skills to do a decent job.
What I don’t get is the sentiment that “We’re adults with well-paying jobs, have been living together for years, and don’t need any toasters, but because we are marrying, you should ‘help’ us.” Help with what and why?
You think the “helping tradition” should be preserved, even though the couple has no particular need of “help,” but the rest of the tradition–don’t ask people to give you cash, pay for your party, ask for help you don’t need, etc. should fall by the wayside?
It seems like this couple is causing you to froth at the mouth so maybe go to the wedding and don’t give anything at all, and also make a drunken speech about how awful they are and your opinions on their etiquette fails…or stay home and post on the internet about how much you hate them. I’m not sure what the continuing argument is here.
I already decided to give them a Jesus Toaster (available at www.jesustoasters.com)… It toasts an image of our Lord and Savior right into each slice of bread, and who wouldn’t want to wake up to that? I’m pretty sure they don’t have one already.
Did you ask for cash at your wedding? I’m sensing a hint of defensive-froth in the tone of your response.
I have no problem with cash requests in lieu of a present. One way or the other, I am going to spend some money. I’d much rather grab a card and shove some cash in, as opposed to shopping for a gift and hoping the couple doesn’t get five others just like it.
I don’t understand the indignance expressed here. Helping a new couple to begin their lives together is not the same as serving in a food kitchen or donating to a worthy cause, to be for sure. To me, it is a joyous kind of help. And if I feel butt hurt by what I view to be an egregious breach of etiquette, I can quietly choose not to participate. Nobody is holding a gun to my head and demanding that I empty my wallet. I get to take place in a happy occasion, I get fed, and entertained, and served drinks. I pay for that service in a restaurant and the bride and groom foot the bill for my entertainment (or at least, someone else does). A modest cash gift is not a big deal to me.
OP: you would really end a friendship over a cash request for a friend’s wedding? That seems extremely judgmental to me. Someone I call a friend would have to misbehave quite badly before I would end the relationship (and that has seldom happened). I’m far from perfect myself. Thankfully, my friends extend me the same courtesy.
My husband and I were required to distribute 10K worth of gold to our guests. Unfortunately in my husband’s culture (North Indian) weddings are a method to redistribute wealth from the bride to the groom’s family and friends. So if you really want to know, people got money basically for showing up to my wedding. Not to mention a 2 day stay at a five star resort and 6 meals. That part my parents paid for at least but my in-laws wouldn’t stop crying till they extracted the bride price and my husband and I paid it as a one time cost to get them to STFU. Honestly, I think you’d fit in well in Indian culture.
I’m not looking to save money or somehow get out of giving a gift, but I don’t give a wedding gift to “help” the couple (unless I have some reason to believe that they are in need of such help). It’s insulting to assume that someone is financially needy and would desire your charity. Likewise, it’s offensive to posture financial neediness that does not exist and request money to defray one’s party expenditures. I give a gift because I want to, and I enjoy the process. All of the enjoyable part is removed from this, but the expense remains.
I wouldn’t end a friendship with someone nice who did this, but I’m not sure someone nice would do this. I’ve excused a lot of not-niceness from this person, and this may be the final straw is all. The person has, for example, chastised me for performing favors for them in a different way than they would have liked, cancelled plans they made with me when “better” plans came along, etc.
I’m happy for you that you have forgiving friends and good relationships with them, in which no one is pissing each other off with endless rounds of bad behavior, but that’s not the case here. I am well aware that I can “quietly choose not to participate,” but why shouldn’t I discuss the situation with my fellow humans?
Don’t worry, I’d never tell a tacky person how tacky they are, because that would obviously be tacky.
This is an interesting question for me right now because of two situations in my life. First, I just got married last month. I am older and well-situated financially but am not extravagant, so we had a small afternoon wedding and I asked for help with the wedding (as in baking, or helping set up decorations, etc) in lieu of gifts. For the friends who weren’t helping who asked where we were registered, I said "Hallmark, a mushy card is all I want. " Most everyone seemed happy with this, although I did get a few gift cards and a couple of gifts.
One of my friends did my makeup, and I told her to please consider that her gift to me. Here’s the interesting part. She is getting married today. Her wedding is a much more elaborate affair. Her mother threw her a “honeymoon shower” that I didn’t attend that had a money request for their honeymoon in Hawaii. They have far less money than we do. The kicker? We travelled to the UK together and she ran out of money. I ended up paying for a lot, and after the trip, she said “I owe you at least $500. I’ll pay you back.” Of corse, that was two years ago, and I haven’t seen a penny. I know if I were her, I would say something like “of course, since I owe you, I would hate for you to give me a wedding present.” But, alas, she didn’t. It feels churlish for me and my husband to go and not give them something, so finally this morning, I to contribute more to her travel. Oh, well. The wedding is at a lovely location, so I anticipate enjoying it.
Because you asserted you would not help your friends who are getting married because they don’t deserve it. I was pointing out that there are multiple values for “need” and “deserve.” (Which I said in that post.)
I will stop you right there and point out that unless they’ve actually showed you their household balance sheet (and/or medical files, and/or therapist’s notes, and/or whatever else a person could possibly need help on), you have no idea how much or what kind of help they need unless they ask you for it. You may assume a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean you are right.
Speaking as someone who is constantly explaining what “I can’t afford that” really means. (I’ve actually had people respond to “I have no disposable income” with “Oh, this isn’t expensive,” and hells bells, what do those people think NO DISPOSABLE INCOME means, if not what the words say?) People assume I’m at a level that’s pretty far above where I’m actually at, even if I’ve already told them otherwise. People just don’t grok it.
Going back full circle – your friends’ level of need may be low enough that you consider them unworthy of help, but that doesn’t mean that they have NO need at all, nor does it mean that having a gift registry or functionally including “cash” on that registry is a demand for gifts, rather than MAKING INFORMATION AVAILABLE FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF GUESTS WHO WILL NEED IT AND ASK FOR IT. (There, made it big so you see it this time.)
Keep grasping for straws, dude. You accused flatlined of etiquette breaches for putting a regular old registry on her wedding website. When I pointed out that it’s considered kosher even by Emily Post you ignore the point and accuse me of making a cash ask at my wedding. Now you’re turning down gifts you’d be given at wedding.
Except that you’re not. You’re attending an event of significant expense for the bridal couple where you’ll eat and drink and probably receive a gift/favor, spending your own money to send them a terrible gift and wasting your free time on the internet frothing at the mouth. You should take that chick who was having a meltdown over adopting a second dog as your date. I think you’d make a fabulous couple.
By the way, I do indeed think cash asks and honeyfunds are tacky.
So now saying you don’t need to give presents is out, too?
Jeez. I’m glad I eloped.
BTW, I don’t know of anyone who had a wedding website but times when I’ve received invites with no registry info, Googling “bride’s name + groom’s name wedding registry” has always worked.
Frankly, there have been very few people in my life who know me well enough to get me a gift that I’d like. All too frequently I’d be given a spa basket for my birthday even though it was painfully obvious that I was not that sort of person. My husband constantly gets starbucks gift cards because he “likes coffee”, but the kicker is, of course, he doesn’t go to starbucks. We still have years-old unused cards. And I can’t mention how many bottles of wine I’ve gotten despite how obvious it is that we don’t drink. AT ALL. It’s such a bother to get rid of gifts you never wanted. I find that a lot of people get gifts that THEY like a lot, and assume you will like it too. So gift giving is a sort of sticking point with me. I would MUCH MUCH rather get cash, so I can go out and buy a video game that you’d never dream of getting me. Otherwise you’ve put the burden on me to toss or find some use for the crap gift you got me. That’s the honest truth. Never told anyone that, though.
So when it came to getting married, I wondered if there was any way I could convince people to get me cash or nothing at all without being tacky. I ended up going the non-tacky route regardless, and made a small registry with gift options from $2-$200 and only gave the URL to my mother. I let nature take its course from there because it was too troublesome and tacky to do anything else.
Thankfully, more than half the people gave me cash. Seeing as how my husband and I were recently-graduated students without much savings, it was a godsend. Especially because exactly one week after the wedding I was in a car crash, which the cash gifts paid the repairs for. We could also afford to get a TV bigger than 13" with the remainder. The bonus in cash gifts is it can be used as a lump sum for large gifts that otherwise would never be bought. If it were me, I’d prefer to be in a culture where cash was the norm and actual gifts were the alternative.
And to be honest again, all the gifts I received that were not from my registy list nor cash were awful…and were a waste of their money and my time. It dissapoints me to see cash wasted in such a way.
So in short, it doesn’t sound like you nor your friend would be all that happy with you there, AnaMen. So don’t go, and don’t give a gift, since obviously gift giving is all about how good you feel afterwards, and not how useful or thoughtful it is to the recipient.
We think we finally figured it out; we heard that the ground coffee at Starbucks is not all that bad. But we’ve lost a couple of the gift cards in the desk, and we always forget to look for them before we’re going somewhere that a Starbucks might be. I recently managed to trade a Regal Cinemas gift card for cash since there are no Regal Cinemas in my state. Took about half a year to arrange the stars for that to take place. At this point I am starting to get offended about the wine. Maybe they are doing it on purpose (“What sort of normal adult doesn’t drink?! They must. Everyone likes wine, get them some wine.” Why can’t they just think that, but with chocolate?!)
We had the same wedding gift experience too. The numerous checks and gift cards we got basically paid for our honeymoon, which was awesome. Much easier to write thank-you cards, too: “Thank you for your wonderful gift. We turned it into dinner at the Ritz, just like you recommended.” Much nicer to get that card than “Thank you for the gorgeous towels. I promise to dry only my upper body with them.”
I didn’t say they don’t “deserve” anything; what I’m saying is that there is nothing about their situation that would indicate that I should assume them to be needy. If you’re having a “disposable income” problem, maybe you should have a wedding for yourself… Oh, wait, that would be ridiculous! (Made it big so you could feel yelled at too.)
Emily Post died in 1960, so if she had an opinion on websites, she was quite ahead of her time. Her name has been turned into a brand of sorts, used by a few people, who do indeed have opinions.
My issue with flatlined was not the inclusion of registry information on her wedding website, but the idea that it would be rude not to include it and that supplying would-be guests with contradictory information, which would only elicit confusion, is any sort of compromise.
Receiving a “gift” of food and drink from a host is not the same as accepting a gift of gold. All gifts are not equal, regardless of their value. The going rate for a streetwalker in my town is something in the neighborhood of $50 (learned that right here on the Dope!), but if the bride and groom decided to present guests with hookers instead of the traditional meal, I’d decline that hospitality too.
I don’t know how to account for the non-rational leaps of logic that account for lines of thinking like this:
it’s not rude to give the gift of cash for a wedding
so it must not be rude to ask for cash as a wedding gift
so it must not be rude to put that request in writing and distribute that request among your nearest and dearest
in fact, it’s rude NOT to give cash… who do you think you are picking out a gift, asshole?
I realize that you are not advocating the cash grab, anu-la1979… The above refers to other posts.
Thanks so much for your concern for my potential need for a guest to bring to the nuptials, but I believe the lady you suggest reported herself to be married, and if her husband tires of her antics and frees her up, that won’t change the fact that I’m not generally attracted to females and have a dog that I’d never dream of inconveniencing with another dog.