So, two of my friends are getting married this weekend. They passed by my place about an hour ago so that I could give them their wedding present.
About an hour later I get a call thanking me for the present, and saying what it was! I thought that people generally waited until the wedding to open the presents. Am I wrong? I’ve never been married, so this hasn’t come up for me personally.
Not everyone waits. My husband’s brother got married near Pittsburgh. Since we had to fly to the wedding, we picked a present from the registry and had it shipped to the bride’s parents’ house. They had a get-together at their house for out-of-town guests, so when we got there, we saw that our present and others that were shipped ahead were already opened and displayed along with their cards.
I didn’t mind that at all.
I don’t mind it; I just had this little voice in the back of my head wondering, “What if they called off the wedding at the last moment, like on Friday? What would happen to the presents then?” As far as I’m concerned, the present has gone, exited, left my life; it can be forgotten about.
A wedding present drive through, how quaint. It must go with the Vegas drive through weddings.
I think the custom is to unwrap it but not use until after the wedding, so it can be returned to you if something happens.
There was a time and a place when not only were the gifts opened before the wedding, they were put out on a table AT the wedding reception so everyone could see them.
I had a vague memory of such things, but I thought I was imagining them.
Write the thank you note immediately, send it when you return from your honeymoon. But call, so that the person sending the gift doesn’t spend two weeks wondering if Fed Ex lost your china setting. And mention that the china setting is lovely, so the person knows that when they phoned it into Macy’s the Macy’s clerk actually grabbed the right thing.
(Wedding gifts are properly (in the ideal world) delivered to the home of the bride (in the old fashioned world, this is her parents home) about a week before the wedding and are not brought to the reception.)
The rule I’ve heard is that if the wedding is cancelled OR if the marriage ends in divorce within 1 year, ALL THE GIFTS ARE RETURNED. I assume monetary gifts that have been spent should be returned as well, however, I wonder how many actually are.
We opened some before the wedding, most afterwards.
Thankyous written as gifts arrived, posted after return from honeymoon.
None used until we got back from honeymoon though.
Some still technically not used and some money not yet spent and we’ll have been married 3 years in September!.
Remember the scene in *High Society * where Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm are ogling the ugly statue with the clock in its stomach? They could do that because Grace Kelly put all her wedding gifts on display at the Lord manse. See, it’s a long-established high-society tradition!