Second marriage etiquette...AIBU??

"If guests really feel they need to give a gift then they can get in touch and request suggestions"

This is really complicated though. You have to make a different suggestion to each person and make sure you dont double up, and when making a suggestion, that is just as "grabby" as a gift list in a way because you are suggesting a price range along with it, more often than not. So you say "toaster" and they think to themselves, "well, that's at least £30, cheeky cow, I was thinking more along the lines of a garlic press"...

You can't bloody win. Include a gift list with a wide range of different priced appropriate gifts and you are grabby, say "presence not presents" and you end up with 32 toasters and ask for cash and you are "treating your guests like a cash machine". Make individual suggestions and you are still "demanding", technically, even if they have initiated the gift giving.

Is it really that wrong to just have a gift list with a bunch of different priced stuff for people who feel that way inclined? It is by no way demanding unless you choose to see it that way - at no point does it say you have to present your receipt to gain entry to the reception, does it? Does it? Huh? Hmm? Huh?

i don't think the first/second marriage aspect is relevant really but I find it shockingly rude, presumptuous, greedy and ill-mannered to put details of the list, or requests for cash, in with the invitation. By all means have a list, but wait to be asked for it. I think asking for cash at all, contributions to honeymoon/kitchen etc is a complete no-no. This is all a very unwelcome trend in modern life, and when there are some couples who already have everything, why don't they just say 'no presents' or give a charity as an option? Ugh!

i know TennantsGirl I was

The fact that they didnt offer to contribute wasn't a problem but to sit there and go "we paid x amount towards DHs first wedding" was a real kick in the teeth. I could maybe understand it if they'd divorced but she died ffs!

I didn't want their money anyway, whenever we argue they always mention their will ... I just tell them to fuck off and leave it to the donkey sanctuary for all I care!

...And then I wonder why they don't like me!

Anyabanya, I don't know about patient, chicken maybe.

I think most people gave it. And then bitched about them relentlessly throughout the day.

She has amazing front though, always has had, and I guarantee she wasn't one bit afraid to ask for so much.

[waves at foureleven.. hi, honorary members welcome! ]

Anniebee, I am utterly at your story. 250 per couple? That has to get some sort of prize for sheer greed and chutzpah surely. You are a more patient woman than me, i think I would not have been able to restrain myself from saying something.

We have been invited to a wedding and they don't want presents but they would like money towards a new kitchen. I hate it. I much prefer present list so you can chose something.

I am feeling a bit now.

When dh (my second husband, but I am his first wife) got married a few years ago we put gift lists in with the invitations. Not to be greedy, but because this is what all of our friends/family had done when they go t married. I can't recall ever having an invitation without a gift list in it tbh.

(I am aware that this is an issue that is hotly debated on here)

Anyway, I am now a bit worried that lots of our friends would have thought I was being very greedy asking for presents that I had already had first time round.

I honestly never intended that. Obviously I can't ask people now whether they thought I was being greedy or rude.

Not on topic, but AccidentalChickenKeeper - I am totally at your MIL keeping all the receipts for her sons' wedding expenses in the albums!! Frankly, if I were you, that would have made me glad she'd refused to pay towards my wedding. She sounds as though she knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

OP - I think the idea of giving them something like a rose bush is a nice one - as silverfrog says, it says congratulations and so on.

Yeah I went, and gave €250 like an eejit. The reason for the no Coast dresses dictat was the bridesmaids were in Coast.

One of my friend asked her why she asked for cash instead of gifts and she said "Well we have everything" With no sense of irony either might I add.

They spent a fortune on the do and wanted some money back obviously.

anyabanya Id love to join you.. but not actually married yet. Can I be an honourary member?

Anniebee really?

apart from the cheek, how would you police that?

YABU and a bit snidey. If a friend invites me to something, be it a wedding or just a pizza at their house, I take something along - it isn't dependent on the circumstances or how much I might have spent on them in the past.

I personally like gift lists. I would much rather buy something that I know the couple actually want, and I have never seen a list where there wasn't a wide range of prices. I also don't think that receiving a gift list is the same as a demand for a present. I don't think everyone at our wedding bought us a gift - although I couldn't say who didn't because it really didn't matter to me. I'd like to think that it wasn't based on it being my second marriage though.

How is providing a wedding list more green than asking for no gifts/donations to charity?

Anniebee - you're joking, aren't you?

I don't understand all the objections to gift lists. They are a suggestion NOT an order but mostly they are GREEN.

In our highly commercial world where most of our homes are already overstuffed with crap, god forbid you get married and everyone gives you a whole new bunch of stuff you neither want or need to stuff into your home.

Gift lists are CONSIDERATE and GREEN - if you want to buy a gift at least the couple have taken the time & effort to let you know what they want or need - better for them & better for the planet, and if I was the guest better for me too (at least I'd be very easily pointed in the right direction). If you know the couple really really well you might be happy to buy something off the list, as you know enough about them to do that.

SILVER how strange for you. So you DH's mates were happy to celebrate the wedding with you (at your expense no doubt), but too cheap to buy a gift, which would be for YOU and DH!

really!

-OF COURSE you should buy them a gift! it's their wedding!

• it doesn't matter what the gift is, just try to buy them something they'd like and you can afford. it doesn't have to be from the list.

Annie

Yes I always do but that's a smaller and more intimate affair.

Perhaps you should just take a bottle of wine to the wedding op!

Ha ha, be grateful it's just a gift list. We recently got invited to a second marriage (for both of them). In the corner of the invite was written:

"€250 per couple. No Coast dresses please"

Nice.

Not at all. I was using it as an example to highlight a point. Please don't take it out of context. The second wedding should be regarded in the same light as the first, presents & all.

Out of interest though, do you take a bottle of wine/bunch of flowers or something round to peoples' houses when going for dinner? Just got myself thinking now about the whole giving/receiving thing...off to muse.

I fling money in a card then they can buy whatever they choose...I think a gift/token should always be provided unless your friend is a serial marrier or something

floopy - is that why you should buy a gift? Because you are eating food at the table of someone who wants you to attend?

Do people only invite to receive gifts?

[nod nod wink speaks from corner of mouth] anyone want to come over to 'chat' for a thread about 2nd wives?

(feeling shy)

oh, we get by, foureleven - dh's family are all mad as a box of frogs, so probably a blessign really

weariedfrom weddings - you're welcome. I wasn't sure howto phrase it so that it didn't sound as htough I was footstamping over not getting presents.

I couldn't give a stuff about that - it was just quite clear when we were writing the thankyou letters that 90% of the gifts had come form my friends/family, and that 90% of dh's friends/family hadn't bothered. seemed more thana coincidence, and so I assumed it was due to the second wedding thing.