Post # 32
Member
287 posts
Helper bee
I was just at a friend’s wedding this weekend and noticed that the gift table wasn’t all that full :/. I personally was in the bridal party and forgot to bring my gift 🙁 but I plan on getting it to them soon. Maybe people were planning on sending them later like other people suggested or forgot? Or did you have a lot of families/ people coming together? It seems like they might have just one gift for them all. I agree on having people who aren’t married/ havent been to weddings before. I havent really been to a wedding in my adult life until the one this last weekend, and I’ve been learning so much about weddings with mine that I had no clue about.
Post # 33
Member
1805 posts
Buzzing bee
@Heatherloveskenny: The same thing happened to us. I never wan to say anything for fear of coming off greedy but honestly cards would have made us really happy. Just cards!
We had a total invite list of about 50 people. We married out of state so hardly anyone could come, unfortunately, and ended up with less than 20 people actually in attendance.
We received a gift and a card from my mother after the wedding (she attended but didn’t bring it).. she kind of unceremoniously handed it to us, unwrapped, after we got back to Texas.
We received a card and gift card from 2 of DW’s friends who went in on it together (they attended). And we have one friend who couldn’t come who told us he got us a gift but we haven’t actually received it yet.
Oh and we received a card and chocolates from someone we dont’ even know in real life.. a person I met online during planning who lived where we were married.
Almost everyone we invited were people we have known FOREVER and are very close to, or family members who didn’t come for various reasons. One friend who couldn’t make it asked about our registry, and said she wanted to get us something (but didn’t)… she couldn’t come due to money issues but I did notice on FB that shortly after our wedding she traveled out of state numerous times in a row and attended 3 weddings since ours.. so yeah I was kinda hurt. And I still am. I had many people express how sad they were that they couldn’t make it and I guess I figured they’d send a card at least.
And to be quite honest / frank; while some guests/invited people on our list are struggling financially, many were/are NOT, are in fact far from struggling at all. I don’t know everyone’s financial situations of course but for certain family members and a couple of friends, we DO know for a fact that they are quite comfortable, and even more than “comfortable”. I have brought a gift to every wedding I have ever attended, even when all I could afford were a few hand towels from the registry.
When I married the 1st time it was a courthouse wedding and no one came besides immediate family (my mom, brother, and my son).. yet we received gifts then from co-workers of mine that I didn’t invite and these were people I didn’t even like!
Sorry to go on but this has bothered me for a while, I guess.
Post # 34
Member
34 posts
Newbee
I completely understand your frustration and i don’t think it’s greedy at all.
I am not exactly in the same situation as most of our guests did give us a card & gift (or cheque), and i was very moved by the generosity of a lot of our guests! But there were some that did not give even a card and i did start to wonder if some cards could have gotten lost as i just don’t understand how people could go to a wedding even without a card…
And we are definitely grateful for all gifts and even more so for people attending, but i have to say that there were a couple of very odd gifts in there…. For example a couple (friends) gave US a pearl necklace (frankly it is quite cheap and tacky looking – but that’s not even what i’m bothered about – it is OUR wedding, not my birthday!! – what is my husband supposed to do with this necklace??!) I really don’t get what people are thinking sometimes… (AND i know i shouldn’t compare, but i went to their wedding a couple of years ago and gave a very generous cash gift – they had specified that they would like “the gift to fit in an envelope”- meaning cash…)
We also got a bathroom air freshener – no joke!!
Post # 35
Member
4765 posts
Honey bee
@Mrs P:
I gave a necklace as a present before 🙁
Post # 36
Member
2187 posts
Buzzing bee
Since the wedding, we just received a gift from my aunt who couldn’t come to the wedding–it was just a cooking pan but it was nice of them to send something…
However, my mom had a big problem with this gift. My parents are not wealthy by any means and they have given all of her children (4 of them) very nice gifts when they got married. My aunt is much wealthier than my parents and it hurt my parents that it seemed as if they couldn’t care enough to come to the wedding or give a gift worth more than $20. I’m their first child to get married so I’m sure emotions are a bit more dramatic than if their other daughters had been married already.
It’s not something I really understand because now I see it as something is better than nothing. But its weird how a gift can say so much, and its probably something I will be more aware of in the future when giving a gift to a newly married couple. I think I actually will be more generous than I have in the past…even though I don’t think I’ve ever given a gift less than $50 even when I have been flat out broke.
@MsInterpret: Thanks for sharing your story–I’m sorry that happend :-/ but its good that you can talk about it because it is one of those subjects where you feel bad talking about it. I for one feel really ungrateful feeling the way I do but I can’t help it.
Post # 37
Member
211 posts
Helper bee
I agree that even though etiquette says no gift is required it does say something about the person to give you nothing or give you something really cheap. I do now kind of question the friendships of those friends who gave us nothing, not even a card. How hard is it to buy a 99 cent card on the way to the wedding? These are friends I have given numerous expensive gifts to for their birthdays, weddings, baby showers and so on.
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