Requests for gifts with the fucking wedding invite.

[intothenever]

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.

Twiddlebum - my gifts sound like the ones you want (does it follow that I'm the guest that you want?) I would normally give 100 cash and upwards for anyone markedly younger than me. But I'd be put off by your attitude. You're biting the hand that feeds cash.

our friends who got married 2 years ago put in their invitations 'IF you would like to get us a gift then money towards our new home would be great' (it was written a lot nicer than that obviously ) but the point was you didn't feel you had to give something so IMO it wasn't cheeky. nicest thing was they sent lovely thank you cards with pictures of their new home and the renovations they did with the money.

Putting IF before it doesn't make any different.

It's still rude and grabby and totally out of order.

If people want to know what you want, they will ASK.

Our invertations basically said that we didn't wants gifts but knew that there would be some people that wanted to so any money received would be spent on trip etc on honeymoon. We never expected the amount of money we received and were totally shocked by it. We guessed that some people would put a tender in a card. I certainly did not expect loads of money in return for coming to my wedding. I know that I'm not wrong in my 'asking for money instead of presents' because pretty much everyone I know that has got married in the last few years has done the same. It's not a new concept

Proof that all the money in the world can't buy class...

If nothing else you can know that it's a divisive issue. Best to err on the side of caution in these matters. I think it highly unlikely that the absence of a guest list in the invite would drive a person to buy a gift without guidance.

Ah, this is brilliant. I thought the Wedding Thread season was over, but here comes another one! Sixteen new ways to offend potential guests without realising it. :o

I would't actually mind (too much) being asked for cash, but being asked in a "ditty" would piss me off.

As it is, in spite of having been to (according to a past thread on here) more weddings than the average MNer, I've never once been asked for cash. One couple did ask for JL vouchers, but managed to do so without resorting to either rhyme or modern interpretative dance, simply explaining that they currently lived in the world's smallest flat with no storage space but were hoping to move house within the next year and that was the point at which they'd actually need the stuff.

Relatives of my DH got married earlier this year, 2nd time for one of them, and they each have a fully equipped home, good jobs etc - I was absolutely gobsmacked to get a john Lewis gift list with the invitation - so grabby looking. If I was them it would have been donations to charity, if anything. I refused to engage with it at all and left DH to decide, much to his dismay as I normally do anything like this and he hates shopping online

This couple are v annoying in lots of ways, I hate going out for a meal with them as they always find something to complain about, so that probably coloured my view too!

Lists are completely normal.

However, it is nice to include a disclaimer saying that guests don't have to buy anything as sometimes all their money is used up in travel and accommodation. Having a guest there who didn't bring a gift is much nicer than not having a guest there who couldn't have afforded a gift and the expense of attending.

Gift lists and requests for money have never bothered me in the slightest.

People generally buy gifts when they go to a wedding, if they're a close enough friend that I'm invited to their wedding, then I'd like to ensure that I spend my money on something they like or need.

I really don't see it as grabby or obnoxious, I'm at liberty to ignore it should I wish, no one has a gun to my back

Oh and the only complaint I had about the inclosures in my invites was from someone who complained about my inclusion of an information sheet- we were getting married at the other end of the country from my family (not a destination wedding, close to where DH and I lived and near his family), plus as DH had previously lived overseas, we had a lot of guests either flying in or getting the eurostar over.

So I added a sheet with a map with the hotel location, directions from the motorway, details of the nearest train station (and which station in London the trains went from), the numbers of 3 local taxi companies, details of the discount if guests booked the hotel we were getting married in, plus details of the local travelodge and a link to a council website listing local B&Bs.

I thought I was being helpful, but apparently, this should have been a separate mailing with the gift list for those who'd agreed to come and specifically asked for information, because it was presumptious to assume they would accept and would need to know these things. Apparently, it also made people feel they had to stay over and might wanted to drive home straight away.

This is the same person who complained that I should have given my 18 year old cousin his own invite rather than writing "Uncle X, Aunty Y and Cousin Z" - even though he was still living at home and doing his A levels, having turned 18, I should have treated him as a separate adult. (Cousin didn't seem offended, Aunt just seemed happy he was invited...)

I realised when it comes to weddings, some people (particularly in an older generation) seem to look for reasons to be offended.

We included a gift list in our wedding invitations (we were about to move into an unfurnished home) and our guests were delighted to have the guidance for gift buying. Young and old people appreciated it as I knew they would. I didn't write a ridiculous poem and I gave them a choice, not a demand. I guess it's a case of 'know your audience' and in this case the Bride and Groom clearly read you wrong.

I've been to loads of weddings and have never received a gift list. I hate poem's asking for money or vouchers, but I've never received one of them in rl either. Maybe my family and friends aren't grabby. I would never attend a wedding without a gift, I usually give vouchers, but I hate the assumption that people will bring you a gift and it's acceptable to tell people what to buy.

Got married 20 years ago and had a wedding list we'd put together ourselves, administered by MIL and which gave people buying the gifts an element of choice in what they purchased, ie it was as vague as "a toaster", rather than specifying a particular brand from a particular shop. Guests contacted MIL separately to be sent a list, but postage was sooo much cheaper then. MIL loved doing this and had the opportunity to speak to guests she didn't know on the phone before the big day, because no-one relied on the anonimity of e-mail, and it was lovely for her to put faces to names at the welcoming line up at the wedding whilst my mother was greeting her extended family.

Twenty years later, I love showing the DCs which gifts are still going strong and explaining who bought them - the food processor, the Wedgwood china, the silver cutlery that comes out at Christmas, the tartan rug from friends in Scotland, the gardening equipment, the planters, the lasagne dish. Because of the way the list was constructed, there's a personal element to the gifts and these material items evoke memories of dear and treasured people in a way an elephant trek or a honeymoon contribution won't necessarily do.

I don't think it's seen as rude to put a list in with the invitation, but with a little effort, it can be avoided if the couple to be married are sensitive to this.

I would always take a present to a wedding. I think a gift list is helpful, provided the things on it are reasonably affordable. I know people on here also get into a stew about being asked for money too; but that wouldnt bother me either.

I like gift lists - I would never attend a wedding without buying a gift and with a list I know I am getting something they want

we didn't have a list - we told people that attending (and travelling and paying for hotels etc) was enough - but people rang constantly asking what we wanted - in the end we asked for argos vouchers

People like lists on the whole!

I did this. When I receive them, I'm pleased because it saves me ringing up to ask for the list and the bride being all coy and pretending she doesn't want a present.

Doesn't bother me if people want money or travel vouchers or 200 Benson and Hedges either.

To my mind it's ruder to turn up empty-handed. Or go off-list.

I've never warmed to DH's hipster friends who bought us an expensive and spectacularly useless and ugly designer orange squeezer presumably because my taste was far too mundane.

Why would anybody go to someone's wedding that they didn't even want to get and gift and a card for?

YABVU

Very happy to receive a wedding list that I can chose something from. You would have to be very very mean not to take a gift for the happy couple, and personally I find it much more convenient to buy from a list. Plus I would much rather they had something they want, than a random gift from me that'll just sit unwanted in a cupboard.

I repeat - YABVU

We got married this summer and the party invitations specified 'no gifts please'.

It was our choice to get married and we just wanted to share the occasion with friends & family. It worked for us.

If I want a toaster or whatever, I expect to buy it myself.

I'm happy to give gifts at Christmas or birthdays but to have to buy a gift to attend a wedding celebration feels very wrong to me.

If I had to, it would be a token gesture, I think.

You're right Scholes that's a nice way of doing things

From the POV of a wedding guest I love to get directions to a gift list in an invite, but an actual list IN the envelope I'd be a bit I think, it's just a bit indiscreet maybe? A gift list generally as an idea though, yes, it's great, a list means I know I will have got the B&G something that they want, and TBH it saves me the hassle of agonising over and shopping for a gift. Money requests I find understandable but a little annoying because it causes gift inflation - you might feel perfectly fine buying a 20 quid toaster that they've asked for, but 20 quid in a card feels cheap, so you put in 30/40!

When we got married we decided to include the gift list details on the information page of our invite, along with hotel / travel details. We didn't send them with evening guest invites as that did feel a little rude, but some bought us gifts anyway which was lovely. We'd lived together for 5 years, but our house was a mish mash of Ikea and battered hand-me-downs from student days, so we upgraded a lot of kitchen stuff and it's been fab. We sent thank you cards and I have a list of who bought what so I can remember what's what and thank them again when I next see them!

It is totally socially acceptable. In fact, I can't remember the last time I received an invitation and it didn't have a gift list.

This 1970s throwback crap about 'you must approach my mother and ask for a list, which will then be forwarded on to you reluctantly and there will be nothing on there that costs more than 49p, hence I should be so presumtuous as to think you might actually value our friendship enough to want to buy something both nice and useful and wanted'

It might be lovely to be so nostalgic, but it just bears no resemblance to how most people live. The vast majority of my friends don't know my parents for starters, let alone have the time for this crazy charade of writing each other scented letters so we can all pretend we are in Downton bloody Abbey

Why aren't there rules in the imaginary etiquette rule book about not getting shirty with people you normally like or love, even though they committed the heinous crime of doing their wedding invitations differently from how you would have done it?

I think it the height of bad manners to use tradition/etiquette etc to get in a snit at people over very minor issues of protocol.

It's a wedding invitation, not a declaration of war.

I really don't see it like that. Your friends can ask you. And why must you hand out a list? You can just say "I'm registered at John Lewis".