How to avoid 15 photo frames without a guest list?

[StrongInside]

Hi,

I resent guest lists because it sounds completely stupid to me to say, ‘It’s your presence, not your presents.. but oh, look, we happen to have compiled a list of things we like. But no, don’t look at it, we don’t want you to buy us anything’. Eh?! And if we don’t specify what sort of things we like/could need, we will absolutely positively end up with 15 photo frames that we won’t ever use or pointless ornaments to gather dust or something like body cream/shower gel sets (and I already have a collection of those from Christmas that I never open because I choose specific products for my skin).

With money or gift cards, I feel that people wouldn’t want to seem cheap and would feel pressured to give more than I would ever spend as a guest myself (£20-25). At least with gifts, you would never know if it was an unwanted regifted gift or bought on sale. But I seriously don’t want to be compiling a list!

What do we do?🤷🏻‍♀️

ElfishBiatch, that’s what we’ll do then. Amazon will work best for us, I think.
Gosh, that’s lucky that you didn’t get any useless or impractical gifts. Were they all for the home?

We asked for "something for the garden" - worked well.

My 2nd marriage we asked for a dinner service and although it was Denby we used it every day.

RandomMess, surprised you didn’t end up with 10 gardening tool sets or something😊

Found a nice website to buy the seeds for bees from, there are other choices too, and not expensive:
wildflower-favours.co.uk/product-category/wedding-favours/seed-packets/charity-wedding-favours/

I wonder if these wildflower seeds can just be scattered in a random field if someone doesn’t have a garden or doesn’t want wild flowers in it. Any ideas?

We got plants, plant pots, out door lanterns, vouchers, those candle things - was amazing. No tools!

We just said no gifts needed at all but if you really feel the need then these are our two favourite charities......
No named charity donation page as then people feel the amount is on show.

I’m assuming some gave some didn’t

Upshot is we didn’t get loads of gifts and no one felt uncomfortable about not getting us something anyway.
We did still get a couple of bottles of wine and most people still brought cards which was perfect.

Oh and the charities were both clearly close to our hearts- DHworks for one of them and the other related to a family issue on my side.

This may be a problem for me in the next few years, maybe not.
So having thought a lot about it I'm going to say money to a charity of choice or some bed linens/towels/teatowels/ the like.
People can then give or spend as much as they feel like. Linens will always get used eventually. And the charity will hopefully benefit more than a little.

Both my dds asked for money gifts at their weddings. They both had their own homes already, so didn't want random stuff. Both were able to go on amazing honeymoons they wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford. For the last DD, the average gift was about £30, some gave less, some gave loads more. Friends chipped in together and gave a couple of hundred, cousins did the same. It was a smallish wedding and they got about £2500 in total!

Hey there strong!

We used John Lewis for the gift list. We made no mention of it on the invitations (as I do think that pressurises people) but did give a link to it on our wedding website in the middle of a big list of FAQ.

Many guests did ask me for the link as my family enjoy the traditional type gift list. I was told to put good quality china on it.

This proved to be good advice, as every time I use my (pretty much indestructible) Denby service, I think warmly of the family members that I bought it for. I will have it till I die probably. In fact, my le crusset set was actually a wedding present to my late Mother. Still going strong 40 years later!

The cheapest item was £15, the most expensive was £300 (spilt into 2) and everything went. Other guests purchased John Lewis voucher as they could see this is where we had the list or maybe everything had sold out when they went on. We put the vouchers together and used them to buy bedding.

We received very few off list gifts. I could dig out my thank you card list if you’re interested to know what the off list gifts were??? This might give an indication of what you get without a list

We had 70 guests.

I know traditionally it’s not acceptable to mention gift lists in the invitations, but I would urge you to do so. These days families are more spread out and people may feel upset or embarrassed that they didn’t realize there was a gift list. I think these days it is seen as socially acceptable to give out full information when you send out the invitations.

Honestly we just said whatever you like or vouchers. Most people went with vouchers and we got some lovely individual gifts.
Don't overthink OP, people expect to give a gift.

Personally I'm beyond the need for more household crap stuff and would ask everyone to bring something like a plant or a book with a message in it. (Or whatever equivalent suits your taste)

Then people don't have to wrack their brains, can spend anything from 0 to infinity pretty much, and loads of repeats are unlikely.

Hey BitchyArriver😊 Haha, that would be good to see what random gifts we could end up with, only if it’s not too much hassle to dig out that list!

When do we have to finalise the list by? I take it before the invites go out? I worry we could miss the boat if someone asks us about gifts, we don’t have the list ready and they don’t ask again. This has happened before Christmas once, I said I couldn’t think of anything and got a framed picture of a bird (I’m not into birds or pictures, just to make it clear how random the gift was😂)!

I love gift lists. It's so much easier than having to try and think of something to buy. I'd much rather buy something from a list and know the b&g are getting something they really want. I hate giving money or vouchers

Yes, you should finish the list before you send out the invitations. Funny story, I told my dad’s cousin that we were planning to get married and would love to have them there. They asked me for the list straight away, the wedding was 2 years away!!!! So the earlier the better. With John Lewis I know you can edit it as you go if you need to.

I’ve dug out my wedding folder and I’m going to namechange and post all the gifts on here. Just for shits and giggles.

I think gift lists are great as long as there are lots of low and medium priced items. I still remember the gift list for our friends' wedding that had ridiculously expensive things on it and I wasn't impressed. And I don't think it works to have single items of expensive cutlery/crockery because no one wants to spend £20 on a fucking spoon. I'd rather buy a thoughtful gift.

Personally I don't like it when people ask for charity donations. I support charities (I've mostly worked in the charity sector and I donate to charities of my choice, as well as sponsoring friends and family when they fundraiser). But I don't like been asked to donate for a wedding when I actually want to give something to the couple.

I'm getting married soon and don't have a gift list. Everyone knows we have already booked / paid for our honeymoon and are saving towards a new bathroom and kitchen. A bit of money in a card is the done thing in our friendship groups / families.

Hello strong, bitchy here again. Have name changed.

Okay, so most guests choose off the list which was basically a Denby dinner service for 8 with plates, bowls, mugs, serving wear. A cutlery set, a full set of quality glassware including red wine, white wine and champagne glasses, napkins and placemats.

We also got maybe £300 of John Lewis vouchers total from 4 couples which we put together to buy bedding.

£300 cash total from another 4 couples which we spent on extra treats for our honeymoon. We used this for a day trip, an upgraded meal at the AI hotel, an expensive bottle of fine wine on the first night, and gave $50 to the guy responsible for topping up our mini bar LOL.

Offlist gifts...
A beautiful painting of our wedding venue which we had framed and is one of my favourite possessions.

Gorgeous silver goblets which sit pride of place on our fireplace.

A set of wine glasses (but haven’t quite used yet as they don’t match the ones from our list.

A le creuset coffee maker and a lovely smelly candle.

A set of le creuset pot holders (used every single day for several years now!!)

A bottle of wine from the year we met. We shared this on our first anniversary and have kept the bottle for a candle holder. Loved this gift!!

A very classy silver picture frame (just the 1!) which we used to place some wedding photos in.

A horseshoe from a baby guest. Apparently this is traditional. It was so sweet and it hangs in our kitchen now.

A restaurant voucher to an amazing romantic Italian place.

Another couple took us out after the wedding as their gift for a Michelin star meal and spent £800 for the 4 of us.

Hope this gives to an idea. We were so grateful for everything that was given.

I would say you should do a list. It’s a social contract that can confuse guests if you try to avoid it. It works like this...

You invite guests to join you to watch your ceremony.

In return you thank them by providing a reception with food and drinks.

To thank you for the reception most guests will bring a gift.

Just don’t mention it on the invitations if you don’t want to be too pushy.

Redglitter1, oh, I totally agree- as a guest, I like to get something I know for a fact the couple want.

AnotherEmma, totally agree re: charity. I donate to fundraisers, cake bakes etc. Weddings aren’t the same as fundraisers for me.

BitchyArriver, ace, thank you! Especially love the venue painting, meal voucher and bottle of wine to open on your anniversary! £800, WOW! That must have been some seriously special food and that couple must like you A LOT😃
I’m surprised that there are no toasters and multiple photo frames in sight! I will make a list that can be edited later and won’t mention it unless asked😊 I’m hoping people will have the sense to either bring nothing or something that isn’t a bird or random gloves or something😆

Glad you found it helpful strong. As you can see I absolutely loved all the gifts.

Tbh the wine glasses that didn’t match our set were one reason we should have given the list in with the invitations. That way they could have easily seen they would have been a duplicate. But even so we appreciated the thought and will treasure them anyway.

I still didn’t like the idea of putting the list in with the invitations, it just felt too pushy, but I can see why PPs upthread said they prefer to know in the easiest possible manner.

But back to the original point, having the gift list was so much smoother for everyone. In fact most of the offlist gifts were given by friends who knew our tastes really well. The list was used mainly by more distant relatives who would have not had a clue otherwise what to buy.

I like gift lists that don't specify the actual precise item. Ie where you ask for a toaster but you don't give the exact make and model. That allows people to choose something they like and something that fits their budget.

Having a gift list that is detailed isn't too different from asking for cash.

Bitchy, such creative gifts! Our issue will be that most guests don’t know our tastes that well. After having our baby and moving house, we haven’t had any of them over much or talked about our decor style. So putting a list together of some low priced items off Amazon to give to those who ask will be our best bet. And I do hope that most will ask. It’s like gifting perfume without knowing whether the recipient likes floral, fresh or musky scents (or like me, being conscious (=paranoid) of chemicals around my baby and only using phthalate-free stuff).

GreatBigNoise, interesting perspective, the biggest problem is ‘something they like’ isn’t going to be sitting in their kitchen, so as someone who cares about colour matching appliances, I could end up with a red toaster, white kettle and stainless steel coffee maker, and that just isn’t pretty. Although if all people remembered to get a gift receipt, which they hardly ever do, this problem would be easily fixed.