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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Requests for gifts with the fucking wedding invite.

319 replies

intothenever · 16/12/2013 06:10

HOW is this socially acceptable? How? Family and friends, Please join us as we celebrate our love and commit to spend our lives together. Enclosed is a list of things we would like you to buy us. 1000 times worse when the demand for gifts is in rhyming couplets.

OP posts:
OrangeMochaFrappucino · 17/12/2013 18:46

Sorry - I found the assumption that saying you don't expect gifts but there is a gift list is automatically 'fake' offensive but didn't actually mean I think you personally dislike your friends and family, rather that in general it sounds like an assumption someone would make about someone they didn't like. I get the impression that a few people on this thread find a wedding invitation a terrible imposition rather than a joyful thing. Sorry for causing offence though, I could and should have worded it better.

HesterShaw · 17/12/2013 18:47

I've thought of my final word on the subject, thank goodness.

We went to two weddings thus summer. One of them had a little card in with the invitation saying, if you would like to buy us a gift, we have most things we need for the house, so what we'd really love is a honeymoon to Ireland, therefore all contributions would be most gratefully received. The other made no mention of presents. On being asked, they said "Oh nothing, no really anything would be lovely.. " Not being the sorts to turn up at a wedding with nothing for the couple we bought them a nice lampshade. These were both in August.

A month later we had a lovely letter from the Ireland honeymooners, thanking us for coming and for the cheque, with a description of where they'd stayed and what they'd seen and so on. Still waiting for acknowledgment of the other.

I'm very sure I know whose manners are nicer and nothing would change my mind, despite people bellowing how "grabby" and common they are :)

AvonCallingBarksdale · 17/12/2013 18:51

How bizarre Confused I don't know anyone in RL who would be upset/offended by the inclusion of a wedding list in the invitation. Every wedding we've been to, including our own, had a gift list with a note in somewhere along the lines of "We really hope you can celebrate with us. There is no obligation to buy a gift, but if you wish to, we've included a list to make life easier for you." Just tradition, innit! You surely wouldn't expect to accept someone's hospitality and not take a present along.

KhunZhoop · 18/12/2013 08:07

NOBODY knows anyone IRL who objects to gift lists, either in the invitation, or anywhere else. Competitive offence-taking at tiny things is one of the shittiest of MN memes.

echt · 18/12/2013 08:34

I don't think it's about taking offence. To mention gifts in a wedding invitation has been considered poor etiquette for many years. It implies that the invitee is such a clod that they would turn up empty-handed.

Crowler · 18/12/2013 08:37

Competitive offence-taking at tiny things is one of the shittiest of MN memes.

That's just silly. I'm sure you can find some "tiny" thing that you don't agree with (no one's offended, actually) that someone else DOES agree with, and then they can accuse you have having shitty memes.

KhunZhoop · 18/12/2013 10:24

Have either of you RTFT?

TheBigJessie · 18/12/2013 10:38

Ah, it's ages since we had a good wedding list thread!

Are you sitting down and ready to listen?

Once upon a time, people didn't have lists like they do now. Because they lived in tiny communities, and their entire families talked to each other about it all.

Dorothy would tell everyone she's got some bedding, and Hilda would have done towels, and Frank would have done cutlery. It's a bit like organising Christmas presents in my family.

These days, things are a tad different, and I don't know every single wedding guest at my ex-flatmate's wedding, and so naturally I am reluctant to call 60 complete strangers up to ask if anyone else has bought Fiona and Shrek a wok.

Fortunately, Debenhams and Argos have risen to the demands of the modern age, and provide wedding list services!

Panzee · 18/12/2013 10:40

So from what I can tell it's ok to have a wedding list but not ok to talk about it, because that's grabby. :o

winkywinkola · 18/12/2013 10:41

Echt, it doesn't imply that the invitee is a clod at all. That is an example of offence taken where there is absolutely none intended.

A gift list included in the invitation envelope means please feel free to choose a gift from this list of stuff that we really like/need. NOT the the b&g assume you'll turn up empty handed if we don't put the list in. To think that about gift lists is indeed odd.

HesterShaw · 18/12/2013 10:44

Now look, I think I had the final word on the subject, beyond all further debate (see above)

HesterShaw · 18/12/2013 10:49

Though Pander I think you may have assessed the situation nice and succinctly.

Ps has anyone ever encountered the word "grabby" outside of MN?

HesterShaw · 18/12/2013 10:49

Panzee not Pander. Silly phone.

Thumbnutstwitchingonanopenfire · 18/12/2013 14:02

Well there's always this fellow - known as Grabby Crabby. Not entirely sure that he asked for money/crystal decanter & glasses for his wedding though, he's just a bit of a klepto. Xmas Grin

limitedperiodonly · 18/12/2013 17:37

Ps has anyone ever encountered the word "grabby" outside of MN?

No. Nor entitled used in the MN way.

I realise I'm entitled in that I expect to be able to do the things I want to do so long as the only thing I hurt is other people's ludicrously heightened sensitivities.

glasgowsteven · 18/12/2013 17:45

Getting married next year, we live together, in a rented furnished flat, we dont need any "stuff" we dont want money, a bit grabby for us.

We were at three weddings last year.

One had a wedding list (SIL to be, both lawyers, 1/4 million pound house in glasgow...) their gift lift included canteen of Silver cutlery, X Box and a Pizza Cutter......we got them the pizza cutter....

2 other weddings...

neither asked for anything...neither got anything.....

Until August this year we were both students....and beyond skint

kerala · 18/12/2013 18:06

I love them. You can sit in the warmth of your house and buy the couple something you know they want which will be delivered to them then you can think no more of it. I don't like it when there isn't a list worry I will get them something they don't want which is a waste.

LividofLondon · 18/12/2013 18:37

"So many seem to resent helping couples set up in life"

What I'm reading Winky is that many people (including myself) are questioning gift lists for people who have already set up home. They simply don't need anything for the house. They may want better shit for their house, but they don't need anything. It's not what wedding gifts are traditionally for is it. I'd be chuffed to help a couple who were genuinely setting up home together and had nothing, or were so poor they were very short of things, but to buy stuff for a couple who have all they need, well, that jars on me I'm afraid.

Namechangersanon · 18/12/2013 18:44

My dsis wanted a 12 place silver cutlery set costing £4k+ she asked people to buy bits of it, the response was not great. She needed nothing and 15 years on all her wedding gifts are at my parents house as they were too much bother to ship overseas.

Crowler · 18/12/2013 18:58

I can't see the problem with registering for sterling silver. This is a pretty normal wedding present as far as I can tell.

winkywinkola · 18/12/2013 18:59

Livid, then do you go to a party like a wedding empty handed?

snowed · 18/12/2013 19:50

Every wedding we've been to, including our own, had a gift list with a note in somewhere along the lines of "We really hope you can celebrate with us. There is no obligation to buy a gift, but if you wish to, we've included a list to make life easier for you." Just tradition, innit! You surely wouldn't expect to accept someone's hospitality and not take a present along.

Hardly any weddings I've ever been to have included a gift list with the invitation, or any mention of it. Gift lists may be traditional but enclosing it with the invitation isn't.

Obviously you wouldn't go without a present, but that doesn't mean it has to be presumed in the invitation. It's up to the giver to decide to bring a gift, rather than the couple suggesting it first.

echt · 18/12/2013 20:19

winkwonkola, possibly I shouldn't have written clod, more like unaware of social niceties.

This whole etiquette stems from rather grand weddings in the past, which is where the formality comes; it's just that now so many people have rather grand weddings but don't follow the etiquette, which is their choice.

I'm puzzled as to why you assume I've taken offence at this faux pas. I don't; it's just not one I'd commit myself. It's unbearably vulgar to include gift suggestions in the invitation; they should be separate and by request of the invitee. Yes, it's more trouble, but there you go.

ARealPickle · 18/12/2013 20:33

Really snowed? No link to John Lewis/debenhams/website or anything?

All the ones I've been to have - or a link to a website that helps to "buy" bits of experiences for a honeymoon or similar.

Its not literally a printed list of 100 items or so, but a small card from the department store or a link mentioned with the directions.

stubbs0412 · 18/12/2013 20:43

It's not unreasonable or unacceptable. It's the done thing, so to speak. People want to buy a gift and would prefer it to be something that's wanted. How would you have done it? Or if you are married what did you do?

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