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Registry

June 13th, 2006 at 01:08 pm

I was reading Baselle's entry about wedding gift lists and inspired to write about our dilemma. When we first started planning the wedding I was absolutely determined not to have a gift list, for so many reasons. For starters, I know that fiance's guests are spending a lot of money just to come to the wedding (a 3500 mile plane trip will do that) and it is more important to us that they come and spend time with us as we won't be seeing them too frequently in the future, than it is that they bring us stuff. Add to that the troubles of bringing/shipping gifts from the far side of the Atlantic, or buying them online in a foreign currency, and it just wasn't an ordeal we wanted to put our guests through. Then I read an article which suggested that the average cost to a guest to attend a wedding (between transport, outfit, gift etc) is £400! That's just sickening! I don't want to cost all our friends and family that much! (We're already doing as much as we can on the other fronts by having our wedding at a cheap-travel time of year and a "come as you are" dress code) Finally, we are not really "matching set" kind of people. I think picking out china would suck my life right out of me. This seemed to be going ok for the first few months, and we've had some really lovely alternative gifts from some people - some friends of my parents have offered us the use of their holiday home for our first night, someone else is making a quilt. But now my mum keeps passing on messages from people about the wedding list - they want to know where it is, why don't we want presents, we have to have them . Stuff like that. I don't seem to be getting my point across.

Posted in Wedding | 3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Registry”

  1. Princessperky Says:
    June 13th, 2006 at 01:46 pm 1150206418
    1150206418

    Bite the bullet and make the list, just leave off things you don't want (like matching china) People want to know what you want. If you cant handle stuff (and I don't blame you) try an alternative list, like a simple note with the invitations for 'money torward a honeymoon' or donations to your fav place, or your favorite treat food, (soap, spa like stuff), or heirloom flowers (I would love to have some of DHs grandmas flowers from her garden..course I am not a gardener, so I am not the person to entrust with flowers!) or name your favorite restaurant (for a GC.)

  2. contrary1 Says:
    June 13th, 2006 at 01:51 pm 1150206694
    1150206694

    I think a copy of this post, or a version of it, would be great to share. Maybe your mom could read it to people that contact her? Send it out via email? Or with the invites if they haven't gone out already?

    Or, could you choose a charity for people to give in your name?? Thus letting them do something, but not a gift for you. Several people in our extended family have been using Heifer International for gifts. I've chosen to have friends/family give through them, rather than add to a collection of 'stuff' here. I certainly don't need anymore stuff. (we did discuss it first, and it came across much better than this comment here........Smile
    Knowing there is a community getting a flock of chickens is sure better than me getting another crystal vase for example.

  3. loubilou Says:
    June 14th, 2006 at 10:52 am 1150282378
    1150282378

    Thanks for all the helpful comments! We have been looking into Green Tags, particularly for those people flying transatlantic to come, and are also considering gift vouchers for a piece of art we could keep and admire for years to come - and that would also make us think happy thoughts about the people we care about more than smashing a plate from a matching set they had bought us would!

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