A dumb wedding-gift rule you should ignore

[tao]

One of the accepted forms of extravagance in our society is a lavish wedding. You can see this in the rule that the dollar value of your wedding gift should “cover your plate” or, in other words, be equivalent to the cost of the food and booze you consume at the event.

The underlying attitude here is that it’s our duty to underwrite expensive weddings by chipping in with a gift that recognizes the financial burden carried by the happy couple and possibly their families.

Just in time for wedding season comes a welcome dismissal of this rule.

In a post on the Two Cents blog, etiquette expert Lizzie Post (great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post) is quoted as saying that a wedding present should always be within your personal budget. “You decide that based on your connection to the person getting married, your own gift-giving style, desire and generosity in that moment and what’s feasible for you to do,” Ms. Post says.

The risk in giving within your budget is that you’ll look cheap. The blog post on Two Cents has a good response to this: “If your friends are really worried that you didn’t spend enough on a gift—well, they’re probably not great friends anyway.”

A survey done last year found that Canadians on average believe that $147 is the right amount for a wedding present. One in 10 people in the survey thought they should spend less.

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[straycat19]

When our daughter married the boy she had been going with for 11 years, since she was 15, she wanted to get married in Maui.  So his parents and us went to Maui and they were married on the beach at the side of Clint Eastwood's home.  There were no wedding gifts because there were no guests.  When we returned to the states we held a reception for friends and family and noted on the invitations that gifts were not expected.  We had a full buffet dinner and an open bar.  Some people brought gifts but they were nothing extravagant and that was absolutely fine.  Seems like people feel obligated to provide a gift.