Question on wedding gift etiquette
 

your opinions please:

I have a male cow orker who is getting married. I say that it's not proper to just bring wedding gifts to the office and give them to him. I think they must be sent or delivered to the bride, in care of her parents, whose address is the one on the invitations.

My friends think I'm crazy. Do you?

nope. I feel the same way, but thats apparently not the way the world is anymore.
<shrug>

I told them they had no class. And they laffed at me! hummpf!*


*these are good friends, tho, so they get to laugh at me

I don't endorse marriage, or any other contrivance that stares at a 75% chance of failure within five years...:neutral:

If wasn't going to attend the ceremony...they'd just have to be happy with however they got the gift, if they got one.

And, we all think you're crazy...just not for this.:D

no avoiding truth, is there?

Every wedding I've been to over here, people just take the gifts to the reception after the service. Usually then, after the cake cutting and speaches, the bride and bridesmaids open the gifts and display them for other guests to view.

Not too many people give gifts if they're not going to the wedding.

Interesting. The custom here in the US is you definitely do not open the presents at the wedding reception. They are piled on a table or in a nearby room, and the bride and groom open them later at their leisure (and send thank-you cards, hopefully.) But I, too, have never heard of giving a wedding present to someone if you're not invited to the wedding (unless of course you're giving the present at a wedding shower that someone is throwing instead, in which case you've still been invited to an event of some sort.)

We didn't open any presents at our reception, but we had a wishing well also, so not many people brought gifts anyway. Some did though.

There was no particular purpose to not opening gifts aside from the fact that one bridesmaid had to be taken home shortly after the speaches because she was so trashed. Another had to leave because her partner was ill (not from drinking) and my other bridesmaid was too busy partying.

It was a good night. :)

oh, it's REALLY poor etiquette to bring presents to the wedding. Although people do, of course.

I'll just do it the way I think is right, but I did want to hear what youall say about it.

Oh I agree, you don't bring the present to the wedding itself; you leave it in the car and then take it into the reception.

Yup - gifts are typically taken to the reception if attending, if not then give it to someone trustworthy at the wedding.

We also sometimes do the bridal registry thing - couple go shopping at a major store, leave a list of what they want, family go in and pay for something, it gets marked off the list and the store delivers the lot to the couple's house. Brilliant way to avoid getting eight toasters and five kettles!

My niece is getting married in two weeks.
Her registry lists the Nintendo Wii.

Here's my experience.

If you are going to the wedding, you bring the gift with you to the reception. It is placed upon a table with other gifts, apparently so that everyone can admire how many gifts have been collected, and that's that.

The gifts are opened at some future point, perhaps when the happy couple returns from their honeymoon, and thank-you-notes are issued at that point.

If you are not going to the wedding, whether or not you should actually send a gift depends upon your relationship to the bride or groom. The way I see it is this: would you attend the wedding if circumstances were ideal? If distance, scheduling, expense, health concerns, social awkwardness etc. were not an issue, would you go? Are you close enough to that person to believe you weren't invited just to be polite or just as the source for another gift? If so, you should send a gift even if you can't be there, even if it's just a $10 teflon skillet. From their registry, of course. Don't even think of giving anything that isn't on the registry, unless it's cash or a gift card for a really practical shop, nothing obscure, because gift cards are just a major pain if they're not someplace you go anyway.

And Crimson, I think it's entirely appropriate for your niece to request a Nintendo Wii. The Wii fuckin' RULES. I LOVE our Wii. Every marriage needs a little healthy escape time. It's just as important as china and crystal. Wait--who uses china and crystal nowadays?

OUR registry didn't ask for any of that stuff. We were already living together and didn't need much. We asked for money and gift cards. We were really crass--I mean it, I look back and think damn, did we really do this? How rude! But the thing we wanted most of all was contributions to our honeymoon. We set it up with AAA so they could actually pay the travel agent, somehow--I think it involved buying traveler's checks--so we could go to Florida for a week. We couldn't afford it otherwise. I think we ended up collecting about $400 which really helped a lot.

Well, TMI, but yeah, you're right. Send 'em to the address on the invitation.

Just like the very worst examples of 'Political Correctness', etiquette should be avoided whenever possible!

I'm beginning to think Cloud is a pseudo hippie. :lol2:

Oh, man . . .(whine)

Word.

Well, Juniper, I wasn't saying she shouldn't request the Wii.
I just thought it was an odd thing to register for.

When the Wife and I got married, we paid for everything.
Her family said "What do you guy want or need?"
"Well, we don't need Tupperware of glasses."
What were the only things we got?
Three guesses.
First two don't count.
My family didn't even acknowledge the invites.

Ouch. Been married before?

Wedding etiquette is an anachronism.
People should feel free to celebrate their marriage in any way they see fit.

That said, the groom isn't usually the one pushing the formal side, so you might find his bride has other ideas.
My husband and I clashed because he wanted to come dress shopping with me ("It's my wedding too!") and because he didn't understand the concept of a Wedding Breakfast, preferring instead to go straight to the buffet and therefore have everyone involved all day, rather than splitting the guests into ceremony and evening.

We did stick pretty much to tradition in the end, but because of a few things we changed, everyone thought of ours as a really bohemian, ground-breaking wedding. Partly because we were the first people amongst our family & friends to take advantage of the new wedding licence - prior to that it was either church or Registry Office (which was often in a grim Council office, even if the room was made special).

Didn't help us in the long run of course.

Which is kinda my point. Who cares if a couple don't seat their top table according to tradition, or don't have a receiving line, or get their prizes sent to the office? If they are happy and committed to making their partnership work then good luck to them.

Nope. First marriage for both of us.

My family is VERY fucked up.

Mom couldn't go because she was in the hospital again.
Every other week, it was something else.
Hypochondria is a hell of a thing.
Dad refused to attend, because Jehovah's Witnesses are forbidden from entering a house of worship.
The other seven kids refused to go because this one ain't talking to that one, and since she ain't talking to him, this one can't go, and so on.
The Wife's family was surprised no one showed, but knowing my family, I wasn't surprised.

:(

Why do you think that?