Gimme Gimme

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I know a bride-to-be that created a web site to keep friends and family posted on the details of the wedding (which is a very nice idea). But, the site is non-stop awful. She posted photos of herself in the wedding dress, even though the wedding is months away. And, here’s an actual quote from the site...right at the top of the page...in HUGE letters:

"Registered at: Target Gift Registry - [link to online registry] Wal-Mart Gift Registry - [link to online registry] Amazon.com Gift Registry - [link to online registry]

No gift registries at Sears - but it's Bob's favorite store! Feel free to get gift cards from them for us!"

Note: To top it off, the registries included not one, but TWO deep fat fryers. And, nose hair trimmers! Yuck.

Gimme0206-04

Here's one for the Mail Bag. It just pissed me off a bit... I was on the way home from a big shopping trip, pulled into a small strip mall because it had my bank and I needed to pay into my credit card. I just happened to glance at a nearby window, and blinked. It was a travel agency, and in big pink lettering on the window, it said (paraphrasing) "Bridal Services here! Wedding Registries available!" And we wonder where brides get the idea of registering for vacations. UGH! It's not right to take advantage of clueless, innocent brides, in my opinion. And it's not right to perpetrate the evil with more experienced ones who should know better! I won't be visiting that store. (a threat that would have more fangs if I wasn't a starving student, but oh well :)

Gimme0302-04

I was surprised when I received a "save the date" note for the wedding of a woman whom I knew only slightly through friends, but we had always gotten along well and I wished her all the best in her marriage. I was doubly surprised to be invited to her shower, but I attended with a smile and a very nice gift. Then we received the wedding invitation. It included all the specifics of the ceremony, but then just a sentence that said "a reception for immediate family will follow the service." At this point, I suspected a shakedown was going on...

When we got to the wedding, a big gift table was right at the church entrance. After the ceremony, most of us were simply sent on our way -- no coffee, no cake, absolutely nothing. Bad enough, right? The kicker was a few weeks later, when the bride sent out a mass email thanking all the guests for coming. She attached pictures to the email, most of which were of the reception! Where there were apparently dozens of people, a live band, champagne, and a beautiful cake!

Evidently the couple's wedding plan was to invite everyone they'd ever met to the shower and the ceremony -- which the bride and groom didn't have to pay for, naturally -- to maximize the profit. Then only the people they actually cared about were invited to the reception. I can't imagine what possessed them to send us all the pictures, though. Did they want to rub in our faces that we got conned?

Gimme0303-04

I have a friend who is got married about four months ago.  It was her third marriage, and she already has several children by different fathers.  Despite this, she wanted to do the "big, white, formal" thing.  After many conversations, myself and several other friends convinced her that such a wedding was inappropriate for her situation.  Finally, she calls me and says she has decided to have a "Vegas" theme wedding instead.  Sounds great right? Wrong!  Bridezilla decides that since Vegas is all about money, a Vegas-themed wedding should be all about money too. Not only did she ask for money in the invitations, she had a "Casino Manager" at the door of the reception charging entrance fees!  There was also a "wishing well" made up to look like a slot machine, and instead of the standard forks clinking on the glass to get the bride and groom to kiss, one had to shoot "Craps" with a $5 minimum! 

However, the Bridesmaids got the worst treatment of all.  Thank God I was not a bridesmaid, because after the ceremony the bride made them all put on these HUGE and incredibly ugly "showgirl" headdresses made out of feathers.  It was about a month AFTER the wedding that I found our she had bought those awful things for $20 each but had charged her bridesmaids $100 each!  She justified this by saying it was a huge "pain" to store the headdresses in her house!

Gimme0304-04

I am the above mentioned wicked stepmother.  I raised my stepson since he was four.  I just received an invitation to a baby shower for his wife.  

Some background: *It is their second baby. I thought showers were for firsts only. They had a tremendously garish shower for their first, who is now three.

*They also had a garish "Bridal" shower although the "bride" was already married with a two-year old.

*They leave me out of everything in their lives (holidays, etc.) unless it means they can collect a gift from me.

*They had a huge wedding a YEAR after they were actually married, and asked me to help pay for it.  95% of the invitees were from the bride's side, and the wedding was merely an attempt to extort gifts of cash from her father's business associates.

*The invitation came today and the shower is on Saturday. *This is another example of greed, pandering for gifts, and general low-class mentality. *No one who sent a gift for the first baby (including my 80 year old mother) received a thank you note or phone call.

I am left to ask: Should I politely decline the invitation and send a gift? Politely decline the invitation and not send a gift? Change my weekend plans, show up and choke on my quiche and in-laws? Comment upon the short notice? Ignore them altogether? 

Gimme0210-04

I have a huge problem with people who include registry information in their wedding invitations. As far as I am concerned, that is Etiquette 101! This particular incident takes the cake, however. My friend "Loralai" always had a track record for being somewhat tacky, so while still shaking my head, I was not terribly surprised when she included her registry info. in her invites. I must say I was shocked when I received another envelope from her about a month before the wedding: "As we have such generous friends, most of the items on our registries have already been purchased for us. We have taken the liberty of registering for more gifts, so if you looked up our registry and found few things available, I urge you all the look again, as the lists are updated! Thanks!" I bit my tongue through that wedding but I started avoiding her afterwards. I just could not surround myself with such an incredibly tacky person!

Gimme0730-03

My husband and I attended a wedding for a friend and co-worker of his. The wedding invitations asked for cash gifts to help fund their honeymoon. Tacky, but if that's what they really want, OK. We obediently gave them a check for fifty dollars. Other people didn't agree with this request and gave gifts much to the ire of the bride. 

At the reception that followed, the bride insisted for a "cash dance". All male guests were expected to pay the bride $5.00 for the privilege of dancing with the bride and all male guests were "asked" to participate. Susie would allow one turn around the floor per participant. She even made her father pay. After complaining about the number of gifts that they received that weren't money, she proceeded to collect only the envelopes and refused to open any wrapped gifts saying she would later return all of them. How rude of these idiots to not heed her desire for cash. When she began opening the envelopes she became very angry that most contained checks and not cash. "I can't believe these stupid people think I will be able to spend their checks on my honeymoon. Any moron knows the bank holds personal checks for ten days!"  She also complained about the amounts. "25.00 Why bother!" I retrieved our check for 50.00, tore it up in front of her and said, "You can't spend it anyway so why bother." The marriage lasted only 1 year. The problem? He didn't make enough money. Go figure.

Gimme0117-03

A couple from church was planning their wedding. They didn't have much money, so they started asking for help from their friends. Well, it got to the point where their friends were doing everything for them, from decorating (including buying the crepe paper bells) to the photography, even making the bride's dress. They got these people to do it all for free, but still expected them to attend the shower, gift in hand. Even the men didn't escape, as they were invited to the shower also. 

Then they sent out the invitations. The reception was to be a pot luck. The guests would be supplying the food. Then, to top it off, one of their close friends was going around asking for donations to send the happy couple on a honeymoon trip. I decided to skip this whole tacky affair, since I was busy that day (busy doing anything else).

Gimme0128-03

My friend Kate got engaged to Brad last October.  Kate and I went to the mall a few weeks later.  There was no great discussion on when they would be getting married, where they wanted to have things, or any of the usual beginning wedding planning stuff.  Instead she talked endlessly about how they both have their own places (his a two bedroom apartment, hers a two bedroom condo) and how worried she was about how they were going to fit everything they both already own into one place and where would they ever put "all of these wedding presents we're supposed to be getting."  

The wedding is now approaching, it is in about two months.  They decided to have a small wedding (60 people).  Of course, that isn't nearly enough wedding presents for them so they're having a picnic in September (5 mos. after wedding).  They are registered at 3 places (yes, 3 for a 60 person wedding!).  The groom's sister (a bridesmaid) had a fit at my observation that nobody not invited to the wedding should be invited to a shower, so she is planning her own shower for the couple, inviting only people who are specifically not invited to the wedding.  The MOH and I (another bridesmaid) are left to throw a shower for those family members and close friends who actually are invited to the wedding.  To top it off, the bride included friends from college she hasn't seen or talked to in a year or more just because she went to their wedding and took a gift so she feels that she deserves a gift from them.  Silly me, I thought a wedding was supposed to be about promising to love someone forever! 

Gimme0317-04

I love my cousin dearly, she is the sweetest person I know. I feel bad sending her to ehell, but this is too outrageous to keep to myself. "Jane" has made a point to tell the family she is having a small, informal wedding and does not care if she doesn't get gifts. "Your presence is present enough" she says. However, her registry is not to be believed. She registered at three stores, and one of the registries is 20 pages long. I kid you not. She registered for everything you can think of. Here are some examples: EIGHTEEN place settings of china, 8 bedspreads, mosquito repellent, alcoholic mixers, sour patch kids, butter seasoning for popcorn, matches, CDs, dads, straws, a silver piggy bank, and (my favorite) a toilet. YES, a toilet!  I've had a good laugh perusing over her list. I think if she could've registered for the kitchen sink it would be on there!

Gimme0408-04

Shortly after I got married to my now ex-husband, we were invited to the dance of one of his friends who was an usher at our wedding.   They were having an intimate ceremony only for family and close friends on a ranch, complete with the jeans and cowboy boots.  Ok, to each his own.  I was a bit put off that we weren't invited to the wedding  or reception considering he was part of ours, but didn't think much more of it - until we got to the dance.    

The invitation to the *dance* said they preferred cash, not presents - remember, we weren't invited to the wedding ceremony or the reception.  Sure,  it is common to invite people only to the dance,  but then you certainly don't expect them to bring a gift and you certainly don't put it on the invitation even if they are being invited to everything.    So we decided to give them the same amount of money they gave us for our wedding gift and we showed up with our envelope, which we put in the wishing well upon arrival.  They had a cash bar and then, during the dance, they passed around the groom's boot for donations, came around with the bride's shoe for MORE donations and then passed the wishing well around AGAIN!   

My ex and I were sitting with another couple from his work who were only invited to the dance as well.  The wife, who was Italian and is used to huge weddings, was shaking her head at the tackiness of it all.  She and I had a good time, but we rolled our eyes as the footwear continued to be passed around throughout the evening.   Then, much to our surprise, they actually sprang for a midnight snack that they put out on tables that consisted of dried out roast beef, stale bread with all the GENERIC ketchup, mustard, and salad dressing containers.  My Italian friend and I joked that we attended a fund raiser BBQ disguised as a wedding!  This wedding, or should I say, dance, goes down in my books as the tackiest I have ever attended!    

Gimme0419-04

My cousin had a shotgun wedding out-of-town and then held a reception a few weeks later. At the reception, my cousin’s new wife had the nerve to stand at the head table in front of all the guests and count the money they collected from the dollar dance. I’m surprised they didn’t start opening gifts. VERY TACKY!!! Not to mention he wasn’t wearing a tux and she wasn’t wearing her wedding dress. They looked like guests at their own wedding. It was obvious that they had a tux and wedding dress, because they were passing around pictures.

Gimme0505-04

I am currently in professional school. We have a small class of 80 people. There is some kind of law that when less than 100 people are stuck together 40 hours a week in class they revert back to high school behavior. So our class has its cliques. That's OK by me. However, a member of the Prom Queen clique is getting married this summer. This is a woman who hasn't spoken to 2/3 of the class because we're beneath her.

This spring, she sent out an email to the entire class announcing that she wanted to raise money for her honeymoon. We were all invited to a Line Dancing night at a Texas style club. There would be a $10.00 entry fee to help the bride pay for the honeymoon. A couple days later we all got 'invitations' in our mailboxes to the event.

I was appalled that a woman who never gave me the time of day had the temerity to 'invite' me to pay for her honeymoon when I wasn't invited to the wedding.

Just wanted to share the joy with you all.

Gimme0512-04

Thank you, I can ~feel~ the joy.

This story happened a number of years ago now, but reading the posts on your site reminded me of it.   I was about 14 or 15 at the time, and my church Sunday school teacher (in his early 20's) was getting married.  We'll call him Chip.  Since he was close to the ages of us in the class he taught, we all thought of him as a friend/older brother type and were very excited listening to him discuss the wedding plans.  We all chipped in and got him a fairly nice wedding gift from the class (even $10 each seems like a lot of money when you are in junior high!) 

Neither the bride nor the groom's families were wealthy, but fairly well-off, and the couple decided that they wanted to invite everyone in the church.  They accomplished this by simply extending a verbal invitation to the congregation, and then posting a sheet for those who wanted to attend to RSVP.  In hindsight, and now knowing that an invitation to a wedding normally means you are expected to send a gift, this actually seems a little bit tacky, (also, we later discovered that they had a second, private reception for family & close friends) but, I digress & anyway, we all thought it was nice at the time.  To keep costs down, considering they were going to have over 200 people at the first reception, the luncheon was to take place in the church gymnasium.    

Here is where the faux pas occurred:  the Sunday school class was excited about being able to attend the wedding.  I think it was the first wedding I had ever attended, certainly the first person I actually knew to get married.  A month or so before the wedding, Chip asked all of us in the class if we would like to be involved in the wedding in a special way - or words to that effect.  They were having food delivered, but needed "help" with the luncheon.  Just what this help was was not explained in detail, but we were left with the impression that it would be something along the lines of pouring punch or helping with the setting of tables, setting out a buffet or with clean-up afterwards.  Sure we all said, we'd love to, what fun, we feel so important and happy to be included.  (Also, the way it was presented, it wasn't like we could really say "no").    Wedding day:  We all reported to the gym after the ceremony where we discovered that, far from being wedding guests, we were to be the wait staff.  Again, to cut costs, they were having food delivered (for a sit-down, served/plated meal!) but had not bothered to hire servers.  Also, given that there were at least 200 people in the church gym, there wasn't a great deal of room to maneuver -  this meant no self-serve coffee/water/punch station - we got to serve punch all right! (at least there was no alcohol, since we were in the church).  

Basically, the day SUCKED.  We did not get to sit down once, and if we eventually got to have lunch, I don't remember.   What I do remember is having very sore feet after 2 1/2 hours of waitressing in my Sunday shoes that weren't meant to be walked around in, and being treated like an indentured servant by the caterer (who was understandably upset at being forced to work with amateurs who weren't moving quickly enough, getting in her way, etc.) and the wedding guests who didn't go to the church, who probably thought we were just poorly trained catering staff, clearing a lot of plates & pouring a lot of coffee.   

After all that, I don't even recall getting any sort of thank-you gift or card from the happy couple, although at least he thanked us verbally.  Over the years after this, I held a host of high school/university jobs that included waitressing and food service, and let me tell you, serving people is rarely a great experience for the person doing it, even if they are being paid (minimum wage:).  While inviting every person you know to your wedding may seem like a good idea, it is in extremely poor taste to then single out one group who do not get to enjoy the occasion at all, instead making them work for you!  We (and our parents who got to sit down and be guests) were fairly bitter about the whole thing, but he & his new wife started attending a new church shortly thereafter, so I don't think anyone ever called them on it. 

Gimme0521-04

Last year I went to a wedding of a friend of the family.  He had gone to college with my brother and was marrying a woman a few years younger than him.  She was a little immature to say the least.  She was about an hour late for the ceremony, because all of her relatives made appointments with her at the same hair salon that she did--and there wasn't enough time to get to everyone and still get there on time.  At the reception, there was both a band and a DJ, who played salsa music all night (even when we were eating).  

About halfway through the reception, the band began demanding their final payment (in cash) or else they would leave.  The bride, who already had a few too many, proceeds to the bird cage where the envelopes have been stored, and starts to rip open the envelopes, taking out the cash gifts inside so that she will be able to pay the band.  Her husband is mortified to say the least, stops her after she has ripped open quite a few, then tells the band that they will take a check after the event, or not get paid at all.  Needless to say, the band did not walk out.  BTW, it is a year later and my husband and I still have not received a thank you note from them.  Maybe our gift got mixed in with the ripped open envelopes. 

Gimme0610-04

Page Last Updated May 15, 2007