I am stunned at this wedding list

[Bananaknickers]

Family member is getting married for the second time. She pinched her husband to be from his first wife( she was married too).He has his own business and she works full time. Now they have sent us a list from John Lewis if we want to buy something from there although they say we have lots already. Here's the good bit, they would like cash donations as they are building an extention on the side of their house

ROFL have just looked up Portmeiron Soup Tureen

It is the UGLIEST thing I have ever seen

money for an extension?!!!
why don't you buy them a self-build book
and teabags for the builders - great idea

We sent out invitations to the wedding & that's it. We didn't ask for anything but the presence of our friends & family. If someone asked us what we would like as a gift, we told them about the list we had set up (which had a large range of prices). I felt uncomfortable with it because the idea was to celebrate our marriage, not send round a begging bowl! Some people came from far away so their journey to the wedding was a gift in itself.

Hate to sound sanctimonious but expecting gifts is really naff imo.

in response to Blu's question, I'd argue that second marriages need more presents

there are more likely to be kids involved and therefore no money. There are more likely to be responsibilities and therefore no money.

Buying two 25-year-olds presents who work full time with no kids is a cheek really. Buying household goods for the wedding of a single parent, to use my mum as an example, who has struggled to bring up her kid on her own and as a result has a load of knives with the handles missing to eat her tea with is far more worthwhile.

I don't mind lists or cash requests and I don't think it matters if it's a second marriage either
You don't have to give anything if you don't want to

What I do object to is people not sending thank you cards

god mp I am glad that you said that

I was imagining your house full of the stuff

But Cappucino wedding presents aren't supposed to be an economic token to help the poor middle-aged married couple who have buggered up their lives

They are supposed to be helping people set up home for the first time

If they are that poor, don't spend any money on a wedding

I was very good with the thank you cards
[smug emoticon]

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to go mp before I hit you - I can't even respond to that post without violence

you are a completely unsympathetic f*cker today

we are going to ask for money because we have everything for our home, ived here a year now and the things we do need like a fence to keep our kids in the garden, a new couch (ours was donated by my grans friend its pea green velour and 15 years old ) arent likely to be bought as presents

i know some people find it offensive but i hope when we ask it will be ok. we are going to ask face to face too not on an invitaion or wedding list as i think that face to face is more polite.

Actually Cappucino when I got married 100 years ago to Hubby1, I DID get lots of Portmeiron. My marital home was full of the stuff. [cringe] Then long after we divorced I sold it all and bought myself a lovely WHITE dinner set.

But I also dressed in Laura Ashley all the time and had decorative borders in my bedrooms. The late 1980s were SO floral...

I can't see why you wouldn't want to buy presents for a couple that you cared for and liked as they celebrated the fact that they had found a life partner

I can't imagine anyone counting up the amount they had spent 20 years back

I can't imagine wanting to have that kind of friends

Mp that comment about middle aged people fucking up their lives is out of order. My dp hasn't fucked up his life, he is only just sorting it out, it was a fuck up before he met me and when we get married we will have something to celebrate

Cappucino I DO think that ASKING for presents for a second wedding is rude. What's so extreme about that?

If people want to give presents that's fine. It's the assumed OBLIGATION that I think is horrid.

Wedding lists are always tricky, though they sound like they are taking the p*!

I'm a Travel Counsellor and we run a bridal registry service that pays for honeymoons, its really popular with second marriages and families with kids for familymoons. We organise it all so its better and less embarrassing than handing the b&g cash or vouchers too.

let's all gang up on mp

let's hit her with soup tureens

We did something similar to sauce. Our wedding invitations stated that we categorically did not want to receive any presents, just peoples time, ie, they came to the wedding. We found ourselves besieged with phone calls asking us "no, really, what do you want?"! We tried so hard to put people off, but in the end most people gave us cash because they knew that we wouldn't otherwise have had a honeymoon. Our lovely family (and there were on 50 people there) gave us over £500- an absolutely massive amount of money for us.

you don't ask for presents

a wedding list is guidance

you put 'wedding list on request' on the invites and if they request it you supply it

if they don't you just mutter about them behind their back

simple etiquette really

I said BUGGERED

I am happy to admit that I am an embarassed middle-aged woman looking back on my big buggered up marriage

Jeez not the soup tureens

They look EXTREMELY heavy

they were your idea

Beg Pardon

Would you want this on your dinner table?

Fuck, that's an ugly piece of crockery

Cappuccino - yes, that sounds exactly the etiquette of a well-structured sense of obligation and guilt-tripping!

[embittered unmarried and jealous of anyone with matching soup bowls never mind a f*ng tureen emoticon]

I can't ever imagine using a soup tureen.