Dictating someone else's present?

[wx4caster]

BIL need to put on his big boy panties and buy 2 tickets, one for his wife and one for himself.  Somebody else could use the his ticket instead, but it's not cool to try and get an experience gift to your new wife subsidized by a third party.

[hobish]

Here's the only way I think its ok.  I think your BIL should buy your sister/his wife 2 tickets to the concert.  He should give them to her.  Whoo-hoo she jumps and squeals and gets excited.  At some point he should then say "now honestly this band is not my thing.  I'm happy to go with you but if you have a friend who you would have more fun attending with, I think it'd be a great idea for you to invite them."  At which point your sister can have a chat with any of her friends (surely she knows her friends best) and can offer one of them the ticket - for free - but be honest with them about the location and the costs of splitting a room and transportation.  If no friends can or want to go, your BIL should go with her, the two of them paying for the room, and they should compromise by going somewhere else he wants to go but your sister isn't nuts about sometime.

This.
I cannot imagine my BIL calling my parents and asking them to forego whatever gift plans they had for me so that he could get out of going to a concert with his wife, and send me as an escort instead. An escort who pays for incidentals like a hotel room, even. Maybe his heart is in the right place, but that is kind of rude, thoughtless at the very least. I like the O'Dell's idea of putting the questions back on him.

[Margo]

I think BIL is very rude. He's trying to do something nice for his wife, but not nice enough to put himself out by either attending a gig for a band he's not very interested in, or paying for 2 tickets so his wife can go with a friend. (also - what would his wife prefer?She might feel she'd rather go with him than with  a different friend, even if it's less fun for him. After all, it's his gift to her, not something he's buying for himself.

I think that unless he knew for sure that you were also a huge fan of the band, his suggestion to your parents was very rude indeed, and I hope that your parents would have said no even if they hadn't already bought you anything.

I think WillyNilly's posts are spot on, and that he should either do the thing properly or not at all.

[miranova]

but it's not cool to try and get an experience gift to your new wife subsidized by a third party.

This, exactly.  It would be one thing if OP liked the band and had mentioned wanting to go or something.  But this gift is solely for his wife and he has now asked 2 family members to essentially help pay for it.  That's really uncool.

[JenJay]

Here's the only way I think its ok.  I think your BIL should buy your sister/his wife 2 tickets to the concert.  He should give them to her.  Whoo-hoo she jumps and squeals and gets excited.  At some point he should then say "now honestly this band is not my thing.  I'm happy to go with you but if you have a friend who you would have more fun attending with, I think it'd be a great idea for you to invite them."  At which point your sister can have a chat with any of her friends (surely she knows her friends best) and can offer one of them the ticket - for free - but be honest with them about the location and the costs of splitting a room and transportation.  If no friends can or want to go, your BIL should go with her, the two of them paying for the room, and they should compromise by going somewhere else he wants to go but your sister isn't nuts about sometime.

I agree 100%

[Deetee]

I agree with everyone. This can be a good gift, but you don't ask other people to pay for these type of gifts unless they enthusiasticly want to.

If the OP really wanted to see the band AND the parents hadn't picked out a gift AND it was in the right price range AND the overnight was not a issue, then it may have been a cool thing for the parents to pay for hers. But in this case, it failed on all four points so the BIL should drop it.

[TootsNYC]

Here's the only way I think its ok.  I think your BIL should buy your sister/his wife 2 tickets to the concert.  He should give them to her.  Whoo-hoo she jumps and squeals and gets excited.  At some point he should then say "now honestly this band is not my thing.  I'm happy to go with you but if you have a friend who you would have more fun attending with, I think it'd be a great idea for you to invite them."  At which point your sister can have a chat with any of her friends (surely she knows her friends best) and can offer one of them the ticket - for free - but be honest with them about the location and the costs of splitting a room and transportation.  If no friends can or want to go, your BIL should go with her, the two of them paying for the room, and they should compromise by going somewhere else he wants to go but your sister isn't nuts about sometime.

And I don't think that you would be out of line to explain this to him.

He has involved you, and so you are completely free to give advice, give "life coaching," give etiquette lessons, etc.

[doodlemor]

Here's the only way I think its ok.  I think your BIL should buy your sister/his wife 2 tickets to the concert.  He should give them to her.  Whoo-hoo she jumps and squeals and gets excited.  At some point he should then say "now honestly this band is not my thing.  I'm happy to go with you but if you have a friend who you would have more fun attending with, I think it'd be a great idea for you to invite them."  At which point your sister can have a chat with any of her friends (surely she knows her friends best) and can offer one of them the ticket - for free - but be honest with them about the location and the costs of splitting a room and transportation.  If no friends can or want to go, your BIL should go with her, the two of them paying for the room, and they should compromise by going somewhere else he wants to go but your sister isn't nuts about sometime.

I think that BIL needs to put his big boy panties on and go the the concert if that is his wife's wish.

My husband is not fond of the opera, but he will politely go with me.  I go with him and look at antique cars and gardens.  Compromise is important in marriage or in any close relation*ship.

[SamiHami]

I never say this, but I actually think the OP should print out this thread and show it to BIL. Seeing how many different people unanimously agree that he is off base with this idea might bring him back to reality.

[katycoo]

Here's the rule:  When you buy tickets for someone, you give them 2,  unless it is preplanned that you are going with them. 

If you're not going, they get to choose a friend to go with.  Its all part of the gift IMO.

[TootsNYC]

Here's the rule:  When you buy tickets for someone, you give them 2,  unless it is preplanned that you are going with them. 

If you're not going, they get to choose a friend to go with.  Its all part of the gift IMO.

I think the BIL's problem is that the second ticket is out of his budget.

Which means that, although this is a great idea, he can't afford it.

[cicero]

while i think he may have *started out* being clueless /romantic, I think he ended up being rude. for starters - I am not a fan of the "great gift that will cost you $$$$ to use". (My ex was the King of these and never understand why it might be awkward). Obviously, there are often costs related to going out, and it's not *always* rude to buy someone a concert ticket or restaurant meal, but if the recipient is going to have add gas money, hotel, meals, etc for a concert that they wouldn't have gone to otherwise, it becomes an unwelcome gift.

Going to your parents and trying to dictate this gift was rude. the only way it would have been ok is if this was something that he knew that you wanted, something you talked about, something they might have thought of buying you anyway and he is giving them a head's up that he is buying your sister a ticket... but not in the way that he did this.

I agree with those who say he should either *person*-up, buy two tickets, go with the wife, even if it's not his cuppa tea and stop bothering the whole world about this. OR buy her something else.

[Bijou]

The whole idea of this is just self serving.  He's living in a vacuum if he thinks that everyone else's world revolves around his wife to the exclusion of anyone else.   He tried to make your parents' gift to you actually be a gift for your sister, as though they would agree with him that this would be a good idea. 

If he wants to impress her with this gift which she would apparently love, he should be willing to make the "sacrifice" of taking her to the concert, himself, unless there is some reason he cannot go.  (And I don't mean having to work). 
.  . 

[Samgirl2]

OP here.

So, it turns out BIL needs to clue up fast I think, and my sister might be unwittingly helping show him the correct way.

She phoned for a catch up last night and during the conversation I said I was stuck with what to get our Mum for Christmas. Get this, my sister had just finished booking 2 tickets for my Mum and my Dad to a play that is coming to their town in January. My Mum had been wanting to see it for ages so my sister phoned my Dad in secret to check which nights they would be free and to ask if it was ok to go ahead and get two tickets, one for Mum and one for Dad to go with her.

My Dad told my sister that it was fine if the ticket for him was his Christmas present but my sister insisted no, he had never even heard of this play before, didn't have a clue whether he would enjoy it and his ticket was just so that Mum would enjoy it having someone to go with. If he didn't want to go she could take her friend instead. My sister told him she would be getting him his own present, not to be silly.

I really really hope she tell BIL about this so he knows what she expects in this kind of situation!

[Bijou]

Your sister sounds like quite a smart gal.  Maybe it'll rub off on her devoted husband.  Maybe someday he'll look back (hopefully, soon) on this gift fiasco and wonder at how clueless he was.