The old-fashioned side of me feels uncomfortable with the couple knowing precisely, down to the dime, what I spent on their gift. It feels so calculated. I mean, why don’t they just send a bill?!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nOther Options<\/h2>\n
A few brides and grooms I know have worked to transcend the tax-assessment feel of store registries. While they feel obliged to include conventional stores on their wedding sites (because that’s what lots of their guests do prefer), they expand their suggestions, including favorite charities and causes. One couple said they would love gift certificates to local bookstores and garden shops and described their garden, giving their guests a sense of their values and passions. A few years ago we gave a giant composter to this couple, since they had included it on a wishlist, and it really spoke to me; I totally enjoyed sending it to them. The fancy china comes out maybe once a year, but that composter is used every day!<\/p>\n
Another way some couples counteract the gimmes<\/i> is to ask for non-material gifts. Recently all the invitees to a wedding we attended were asked by the bride’s friend to submit a favorite recipe, which they made into a cookbook for the bride and groom. Another woman I know did something similar for her future daughter-in-law, collecting recipes from all the immediate family, including copies of recipes written by grandmothers no longer alive. (She made copies for all the contributors, and I’m sure they are treasured!)<\/p>\n
A nice custom in the Jewish community is to send close friends and family fabric squares to decorate, which are then sent back and stitched together to create the wedding canopy. None of these touches are instead of a material gift, but they serve to make guests feel like they are more than ATMs.<\/p>\n
Some couples create an online donation registry in lieu of gifts, but the site notifies the couple of the amount of each contribution, something which makes some people (like me, for example!) uncomfortable. I recently received a link to New American Dream’s registry where the celebrants (brides and grooms, new parents, etc) can set up a registry asking for whatever they like, mixing purchased and guest-created items. Their sample asks for recipes, food for potluck weddings, advice, and fair-traded household things. Very nice idea for a small, simple event, but for a conventional, fancy wedding, I think it would freak people out. (It would be a nice additional alternative to a conventional registry, though; a couple could do both, and explain their thinking on their wedding website, the new de rigeur<\/i> system for communicating wedding plans.)<\/p>\n
And what about the most obvious wedding gift? Cold cash, of course. It’s nice to receive, but I can tell you, 33 years later, it’s the beautiful, thoughtful items which I enjoy, the cash long ago having been plowed into aggregate savings. Many of the brides and grooms I know are mature and earn more than I do, so in those cases money feels like a weird gift. (If the couple is a pair of starving students, money is still a great idea, perhaps along with a smaller material item.)<\/p>\n
Let’s hear what you all think about wedding registries, pro or con, and from both givers and receivers’ points of view. Are they a necessary evil, a godsend, or something in between?<\/p>\n
Teutsch previously told GRS readers about the pros and cons of working at home and discussed how to get a grip on consumerism<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/iStock_weddinggifts.jpg\" "\\"Betsy")
The practical side of me loves wedding registries, and the values-driven side of me has grown to loathe them as brides and grooms seem ever bossier. Registries are nothing new, of course. We registered for gifts in 1973, and as a result received two lovely sets of china and ten place-settings of silver. Beyond that, it was open season: we received all sorts of gifts we had not designated. Most we used, a few we actively hated, and many we came to appreciate and even love over time. (Regifting hadn’t been \u201cinvented\u201d back then.). From the point of view of the brides and grooms, wedding registries have many upsides. But let’s look at it from the perspective of the gift-giver.<\/p>\n
Pros and Cons<\/h2>\n
The pros of a gift registry are:<\/p>\n
\n- Efficiency. You can order the gift and you’re done. The store ships it and you don’t have to wrap it, schlep it, or even buy a card.<\/li>\n
- The couple picks what they want, and you know your gift is to their taste, which is especially helpful if you hate shopping or don’t know the couple well enough to key in to their life style. Easy. Done.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
From my point of view, the negative list is more extensive:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3390,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[476],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3390"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}