I’m not a natural salesperson. I’m very frugal, far from rich, and have a hard time convincing others that they need things they can’t afford. However, the job market was slim last year so I got a job as a Sales Associate at a well-known high-end store in a not too high-end community. (Half our elementary kids are on the free lunch program and we have a stock car racetrack.)
So, I’m in the china department one day and three customers walk in. Mom, Daughter (20ish) and Daughter’s Guy Friend. Their mission: Get wedding gift for Mom’s niece/Daughter’s cousin. Guy Friend is, of course, unenthusiastic and just there to hang out and see a movie later (he seems nice.) Mom and Daughter print registry and corral me to ask about this item or that. I show them the place settings: $165 each, couple requested 12. Mom doesn’t want to insult me (though, frankly, I agree with her more than the store) and just quietly asks about something less expensive. Maybe glassware? The couple has selected 12 pretty flutes, 12 white wines, and 12 red wines that are $45. “Is that for a set of four?” Mom asks me, hopefully. “No,” I say, “each.”
Guy Friend speaks up: “What are they going to do with all this stuff? Do they really need thousands of dollars in dishes?” Mom and Daughter nod in agreement.
I’m not a natural salesperson. I agree also. (Eh, it was minimum wage. I go in, I get paid, I go home.) We wind up having a friendly conversation about registries being ‘guidelines,’ and not ‘commandments’ and I show her some nice kitchen basics (not on the registry) that I wish I’d had in my first kitchen. I help Mom buy a few kitchen must-haves for a novice cook (which the bride is, Mom and Daughter tell me) and they throw in a little gift card and some gift wrap. So, it turned out to be an okay sale. Hope the bride likes it.
My point is: If you are one of the few people anymore who actually hosts formal dinner parties frequently and loves serving your dozen beloved friends great wine and great food, then by all means, register for great wineglasses and great plates. You deserve it, you generous hostess, you! But if you’re like most of us and didn’t know what a ‘charger’ or ‘fingerbowl’ was until the helpful china salesgirl insisted you register for 12, and you listened to her, then you have some serious self-contemplation to do, my friend. You’ll never use them! And so many brides believe that marriage will suddenly transform them into whole new, French-cooking, Martha-Stewart people! You’ll still be you! Register for a popcorn maker and a new DVD instead and start your hostessing career with a Blockbuster-potluck party. Or go bar-hopping or bowling, if that’s your thing. To thine ownself be true, or something. You’ll like it, your friends will like it, your guests will like it, and your HUSBAND who fell for YOU which is why he’s MARRYING you will still RECOGNIZE you under all that tulle. Isn’t that nicer than plates? 0921-08
Tag: Registry
Taking Gift Registries To New (Spiritual) Plane
I have seen my share of etiquette goofs, but I have one story that should win a prize of some sort. I wasn’t even a guest at this particular wedding (Praise Jesus). Rather, I was attending a religious conference for young Catholic adults, and the keynote speaker at the conference used his own wedding as his subject matter. Copies of his “Wedding Registry” were given as handouts.
For openers, the bride and groom decided they wanted a big wedding and to invite “everybody,” which would number more than 400 guests. How do two hand-to-mouth lay ministers accomplish that? Why, have a potluck wedding, of course.
But it was the registry that was the focal point. Instead of traditional wedding gifts, the bride and groom announced they wanted all their guests to do good works instead. The registry was homemade, with the introduction, “We will be accepting gifts from this registry only. All gifts should be described in a wedding card and delivered at the wedding. Thank you for respecting our wishes.” Below was a list of things to do. Sound nice? Not quite…
For reasons I still can’t fathom, the bride and groom assigned *dollar values* to each item, ranging from $5 to $500,000, as means of demonstrating the value of the gift to them. For example:
- Donate blood: $72
- Support a single parent; i.e. food shopping, babysit: $90
- Pray for the terrorists, especially Osama bin Laden: $1,250
And so on. The most valued item on the registry was “Go to Confession” (a Catholic Sacrament), appraised at $500,000. So what is wrong with this picture? Several things:
If this bride and groom are only accepting “registry gifts,” what if Great-Aunt Edna *wants* to give her heirloom crystal as a wedding present? Are they going to refuse that too?
- Just what criteria were they using to calculate these values? A single pint of blood that can save the lives of up to three people is only worth $72, but “Go back to church/synagogue/mosque,” which may only benefit the doer is $300,000.
- By making “Go to Confession” as their most valued gift, they are effectively shutting out that option to their non-Catholic guests. Only in very dire circumstances will most priests hear confessions from non-Catholics.
- The couple effectively took public credit for the hard work and good deeds of others. The groom became visibly emotional during his conference keynote speech when he described receiving a note of gratitude from a stranger who had benefited from one of the “wedding gifts.”
Frankly, I felt sick watching this display. To me, the whole thing just flew right in the face of our Christian faith: “When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms giving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” (Matt 6:2-4) Needless to say, I left as soon as possible. 12-16-08
I asked the submission author to mail me the “Wedding Registry” conference material handout and she did. It was even more worse than she describes. There are 56 service “gifts” you can choose from. My favorites are…
- Write a letter to your senator/congressional rep to lobby for legislature that supports morality and justice…$450
- Defer the cost of 2 buses from New Jersey chartered to carry wedding guests (teens) to Pensacola…$2000
- Cook for our potluck reception dinner…$250
But the submission author doesn’t even begin to cover the full extent of this “registry”. After the 56 “gift items” there are two further sections, one titled, “Talents You Could Contribute to Wedding Mass” and the second, “Talents You Could Contribute to Our Reception”.
Wedding Mass Talents include instrumentalist, singers, flower arranging, transportation of wedding party, and even making homemade Eucharistic wine.
Receptions Talents include singing, cooking, reception coordinating, playing an instrument, teaching dancing, be the DJ, make the wedding cake, set up and clean up.
While the Gift Registry items could be interpreted as a good-hearted, well intentioned attempt to serve others, the inclusion of the request for gifts of labor to execute their version of what their wedding and reception should look like puts the registry way over the line for sheer “gimme-ness” sadly justified as religious duty. From a Christian, Biblical perspective, the only required elements for a wedding is a groom, a bride, and an officiant (and a marriage license the government requires). Two people are just as married in the eyes of God, the congregation and the law if they married quietly in the pastor’s office. Having crossed the long-established etiquette line that one does not dictate to one’s guests how they are to bestow gifts upon you, it was an easy slippery slope to asking people to contribute labor for what appears to be a very large wedding.
Wedding “Cashers”
Fox and Friends (Fox News) ran a quick piece this morning on a letter that appeared in a June 20th Dear Abby column. The letter writer wanted to know how to extricate themselves from having already rsvped to the wedding of a couple who had blatantly admitted to registering for expensive gifts for the sole purpose of returning them all for cash.
Jeanne Philiips, the new “Dear Abby”, hit it square on the head calling the wedding a “fund-raiser” the invited couple had no obligation to attend. Great minds of people with the first name of Jeanne think alike! I addressed this very phenomenon in my book, “Wedding Etiquette Hell:Â The Bride’s Bible to Avoiding Everlasting Damnation” (St. Martin Press, 2005) , in the chapter called “Has It Registered Yet?”:
Registries have become convenient money-laundering schemes in which couples register for outrageously expensive gifts or items they would never really want for the sole purpose of returning the item for cash or store credit. It’s a sneaky way to get the cash you really want under the guise of registering. Poor schmuck guests actually believe the charade and carefully choose gifts from the registry under the delusion that you really want the items for which you registered. But it’s all a game, a little con game at the expense of the department store and your guests. With abuses of registries like this, is it any wonder guests are becoming increasingly leery of even glancing at the registry?
My disdain for the practice goes back even further, when the registry money-laundering scheme was in its infancy. From “Bridezilla: True Tales from Etiquette Hell” (Salado Press, 2002):
This type of underhanded manipulation of the gift giving process is gaining popularity as more people marry later in life thus combining two households that are lacking in nothing. Cash then becomes a more advantageous gift, but to ask directly for cash gifts is rude, so the above dirty tactic is often used as a poor substitute. It’s a major etiquette faux pas, because it is a direct slap in the face of the guests, many of whom spent time, energy, and thought seeking out the registry, choosing a gift, and having it wrapped and sent, only to discover the effort was for naught. It is simply the bridal version of money laundering by using the store registry to convert gifts to cash. Make a mental note when you encounter such a couple and resolve not to buy them any housewarming or baby shower gifts since you will have firsthand experience in their schemes.
The discussion on Fox and Friends segued into giving cash gifts and whether it was proper to give enough cash to cover what the guests believes is the cost per person at the reception. What on earth is it with New Yorkers and cash? I had an interview earlier this week with a reporter located in New York City on the topic of wedding showers and our conversation segued to this same topic of giving cash gifts in the amount the guest understands to have been spent, per person, by the hosts of the wedding. The reporter did not seem to comprehend at first why this was wrong so I asked her the following questions:
“How does the wedding guest come to the knowledge of how much is being spent per person for the reception? It certainly isn’t by grokking the amount from the invitation by some psychic osmosis. Did you hear it from the bride or her mother? How crass and tacky to be discussing the financial particulars of what the wedding budget actually is! It’s clearly done with an agenda to sway cash giving to its greatest greedy potential. Did you ask how much was spent? If so, mucho tacky since it’s an indiscreet and nosey question to be asking.
Bottom line, there is no etiquettely correct way to convey how much is being spent per person on the wedding, so this whole belief system that cash gifts must equal or exceed the cost per person being spent on the wedding is based solely on either rude declarations by the hosts of how much cash has been expended on the wedding or rude speculations by guests on what has been spent.
Honeymoon Travel Registries as Cash Cows
The following is my response to a poster’s comments in the Etiquette Hell forum who worked for a honeymoon travel registry.
I believe your association with the mentioned travel registry has blinded you to the obvious. I’d almost be tempted to say you are disingenuous in your presentation of your company’s travel registry.
First, guests are NOT purchasing a honeymoon “experience” in the form of a voucher for aforementioned “experience” at a specific location. You work for a cash registry where guests believe they are purchasing a honeymoon experience but in reality, the newlyweds will receive cash in the form of three payment installments according to your company’s FAQ. The newlyweds has a choice of receiving the cash via check, PayPal or electronic funds transfer directing into their bank.
Why don’t guests just simply give the couple cash? Good question…but your company FAQ has the answer!
Some of your guests probably will, and that’s ok too. But many people would rather have something that feels more personal and more specific. Giving a gift of, say, a snorkel trip, or perhaps a night’s lodging at your resort is more memorable than being just another one of 50 people who all sent cash for whatever you decide to spend it on.
It “feels” more personal but the reality is that it isn’t. Of course, guests could give cash but that wouldn’t serve your company’s purposes of making money off the guests and directing business to your travel agents, who, according to the FAQ, could charge more money for their travel arranging services.
And oh, how convenient that you failed to mention in your post that your company takes a 9% “service charge” cut of the gross monetary income the newlyweds receive. Aunt Fifi *thought* she was buying a snorkeling experience for her niece and her new husband. Instead, her $100 gift went to the company’s coffers to pay for the cash registry service fee. The company only reduces this service charge if the newlyweds purchase their travel arrangements through them and then only if the cost of the travel exceeds certain amounts.
And let’s talk about your understanding of the etiquette regarding registries. The company web site FAQ advises brides and grooms to sneakily work in the link to the cash registry on their wedding site and then send out the URL to their wedding web site. That is directly opposite to what has been repeatedly advised on EtiquetteHell.com as proper, i.e. the only way a wedding registry should appear on a wedding web site is as a small, linked icon placed unobtrusively on the site. Guests who ask for a registry can be directed to click on the small icon.
But hey! Thanks for proving my many points made over the years that registries were created and exist to increase business by and for vendors. They are great marketing tools for wedding vendors.