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.

'Rude and eyewateringly, toecurlingly embarrassing'

Really?!

But so many people do it!

I agree poor taste. I always buy from the list, and fine to tell people if they ask, agree rude to put in postal invite. But I have received several invites like this and I do always buy from list so maybe I need to get over it!

I think a good compromise now is to have a link to a website about the wedding, eg directions and on the website have a link to the list.

I do know what you mean in a way OP but otoh if you don't have a list everyone phones you constantly asking what you want, unless you have stated no gifts please. Most people want to give a gift when they attend a wedding and there is little point in people wasting their money buying you things you really don't want. I say that as someone who had a total aversion to gift lists and then my very practical sil explained it to me like this and it now makes sense to me as long as it is done politely!

I think the most important thing is for the bride and groom to thank people for all the gifts they receive. I don't mind where the idea for a gift comes from (a list, a request for money, a cunning idea of my own), but I get proper hacked off if I never hear anything from the B&G saying thank you.

I sent out the invites with ours earlier this year to a link to a website we'd set up with details of nearby hotels and deals etc (wedding was in central London, some people were flying in long distance)... which also included a link to an electronic gift list right at the bottom explaining that the most important thing was having people with us.

OP, I'm tired, it's late, so I'm just going to say this up front - how fucking rude you are, and how little you must like the people who have invited you to their wedding because they want to share the community celebration with you - and yes, that's what this is. If any of the people I'd invited to mind were as outrageously cats bum I would have smiled politely and graciously hosted them but man you'd be off the Christmas card list. Please re-enter the 21st century and if you expect people to respond to you politely don't swear in the fucking title.

Manners are primarily about/rooted in good common sense. Enclosing a list in the first place is better manners than getting people to contact you for one.

Complaining about it is more about snobbery, not manners.

I'm afraid I'm in the camp who inwardly raises an eyebrow at wedding lists. Most weddings I've attended in the last few years have been between salaried mature adults already living in nicely kitted out homes, many of whom have also been able to afford to marry fairly expensively. All have had the good sense to suggest donations to charities and appeals of their choice in place of personal gifts, knowing that there is nothing they themselves need which they can't afford to buy. In one case, this had a massive impact for a small local charity which received in excess of £5k, making a wonderful difference to what they were able to do in the community. We received an email update saying words along the lines of "Thanks to those of you who chose to donate to X at the time of our wedding." and some words from the directors of the charity outlining how the money would be spent. Very gratifying.

If the bride and groom were very young and of limited means, setting up home together for the first time I'd be thrilled to get the opportunity to contribute.

My most minted friend (independently wealthy, will never do a days work in her life) did however provide an extensive wedding list full of hilariously extravagant items, and that was OK too, because she wouldn't have given two hoots if nobody had bought anything.

saintly & AnAdventure ....

FYI, I immediately emailed my friend back, (after she had emailed me about her surprise engagement), re how extremely, (and very genuinely), happy I was for her.

She then told me to keep certain dates free. (So I was slightly trapped at that point.)

We lived far apart, but I still didn't want to say "sorry can't make it", (without having a SOLID/actual reason), after all the notice I had been given.

And somehow I thought enough of her, (and of our friendship), to want to tell her THE TRUTH (and hope she would understand) ie that I COULD come, but that I wasn't keen, due to the distance and having to come alone.

I had not seen her for several decades due to living in different countries. We could have made more of an effort to meet up in the intervening years. (But neither of us had. So not such close friends.)

However, I had made the effort to keep in touch over the years, (by letter/email), because I always was interested in knowing how she was.

So, (to recap), "sorry I can't come", without giving an ACTUAL prior enagagement or a good reason, when she gave me so much advance notice, would have seemed FAR more rude to me. (And quite fake.)

And, of course, I know HOW to decline. (I did so in this case by email, as there were no formal card invitations and this is how we were communciating.)

I was using the "rhetorical question" ONLY to indicate that MOST people in my situation would have decided to LIE, to avoid any embarrassment, whereas I didn't want to do that to her. (So I was asking "how to reply HONESTLY", without being too blunt or EVASIVE. That's all.)

Sometimes an explanation is EXPECTED. And sometimes honesty means you actually care MORE about that person ... ie that you don't want to brush off their invitation 'breezily' and/or lie to them?

Seems our 'friendship' has survived, as I will see her soon. But I know I risked it by opting out of her wedding in the way I did. (Decided to take that chance for the sake of integrity.)

Btw, I couldnt have invited her, (and many other old friends), to MY wedding (many years ago), but as it was abroad and would have been very costly for them, I didnt. (I knew it wouldn't have been enough "fun" for the effort/cost getting there.) So I just told them all that I was getting married very quietly, without a party. (Which was the absolute truth.) And I deliberately didn't invite them ... out of concern for THEM.

But that's just me maybe?

I don't think most people would lie, actually. I think most people in your position, now that you've given us more details, would honestly say "sorry, it's just too far for me to come" or words to that effect.

AnAventure ... you are kind/you mean well. (Thanks.)

But I still think it would have been a lie for me to say "sorry it's just too far for me to come", as I know, (and she knew), that I could have easily gone if I had really wanted to.

Six hours on a train. A hotel. Taxis. Hardly mission impossible! (Just a faff and tiring/costly.)

And I hate it when people tell you they "can't" come when I know they mean "can't be bothered".

Wedding are just the worst invitations to decline 'badly' as people feel it's their "big" day?!

I never said I hate the couple or do not take gifts to weddings...

Curious to know if people would find it rude if they were invited to a 40th and there was a piece of paper enclosed with the invite asking for gifts?

I am being pretty arsey about this, I know. Wedding is in another country and they don't bloody deliver if you order online so I have to go to the bloody dept store on the way to the bloody wedding. In Sydney.

PS those of you who think this is a tedious subject that has been done to death, I won't be at all offended if you find a thread that is more suited to you.

AND there is now nothing left on the list except for plates so I have to get them plates whether I like it or not. And they are millionaires, so it'snot like they can't buy their own plates while I buy them something from the heart!

you don't have to give them anything. Travelling to another country is more than special enough a commitment to someone's wedding day. If they are twatty about that then they ABU.

"We're getting married!"

Uh... And?

I mean, congratulations and all, but you didn't cure cancer. So why on top of all the travel expenses, the hotel bookings, the cattery fees for my pet and the outfits I now need to make/buy, do I have to then go and buy you an expensive gift off your 'list' because you decided to get married or contribute to the luxurious honeymoon you decided to book?

Sorry, but I don't think so.

My best friend is getting married next summer and I've now had to shelve any hopes I had of taking my daughter away on a stupidly cheap holiday in June because the measly few pennies I've managed to bank for it have to go towards covering the in excess of £400-£500 it's going to cost me to attend this wedding. I'm a single parent on a low income. I can't afford that and help a bride/groom with their indulgent John Lewis wish list/two weeks laying in the sun.

I'm using my work discount and saving any money off coupons like mad so that I can buy her a nice bottle of champagne as cheaply as I possibly can. Frankly, fuck the list. I object!

I guess I don't understand why couples can't just put in a small note to say, "Your presence on our day is all that matters to us. No gifts please." Buy your own patio furniture/washing machine/Nintendo Wii you tight gits, it's costing me a kidney just to attend!

If you're best friends then presumably you know each other well enough to know the others rough financial situation and well enough to be able to day 'I'm not in a position to buy a gift'.

Anyone who thinks their enclosed list is more than an invitation to buy a gift from the list is BU.

Exactly, VinoTime, it is costing me a fucking FORTUNE to get to this wedding and now there is clearly an expectation that I spend A$100 on the gift (I gather they are expecting more than one plate ) and I would have spent more like $40 (but on something I had actually put some thought into.) I do understand people's arguments for the last but it just irks me. So there.

arguments for the list, not the last!

Can the plates be bought separately? I've seen that done on wedding lists.

Yes, but I can't turn up with one dinner plate, surely??

So buy them something from the heart then. And if they don't want that then they're not the sort of people you should care about anyway.

And I would totally turn up with one dinner plate. If they're millionaires.

So don't buy a gift. I got married fairly young and most of my friends were students. Attending the wedding was expensive for them so I never expected a gift. Someone travelled from Japan and explained she couldn't afford a present as well. I wasn't remotely offended and I'm not a millionaire. People include lists because it makes it easy for the guests who want to buy one. I maintain that it is very rude to expect these people to chase a list. However, if they are actually your friends they will not mind in the slightest if you don't buy a gift and they will understand, especially if you travel a long way.

People complaining about well-off mc couples having lists - maybe if their social circle is similarly comfortable to them they don't see it as an issue? Because it's completely normal and if you didn't read Mumsnet you would never come across the unpleasant carping that accompanies pretty much any wedding invitation?

We had a list 20 years ago, and so did everyone else in our family who got married around about then. In those days it was a little slip from the department store. I'm sure some people thought it crass, but I'd not like to have been like my big sister who did get the traditional 10 toasters, which as she was setting up house was a bit sad.

Dh and I really enjoyed putting our wedding list together, and 20 years later we are still using many of the items and thinking of the people who gave them to us. Many of our friends were students and so gave us small gifts (one plate, some teaspoons etc) and we certainly didn't resent it!

Last two family weddings were both much older couples who did have their homes set up, but I still would have liked them to have lists so that we could give them things that they would treasure through their marriages as we have. All their wedding details were on a special website which I think is normal and sensible, so no need to provide seperate details about present lists anymore I guess.

YABU - it's a wedding invitation, not a wedding invite, BTW.

The gift lists aren't compulsory purchases, you know.
If you don't like/can't afford the gifts, then get something else or don't bother at all! Or get them a gift card to the value that you wanted to spend!
Just like an invitation isn't a summons (the clue's in the name).

I have actually only bought one plate off a wedding list before, having said that. But there was a group of friends all going, and we all bought one or 2 items from the dinner service list, so it looked a bit like a group present, but we only bought what we could afford (we discussed it as a group to make sure that we made sufficient indent into the dinner service list to make it a good option)