Friends Or Financing?
I just posted my Advice Goddess column about registering for weddings -- and not just for gifts, but for payments for the ceremony, the honeymoon, and even the house! A guy wrote to me:
My fiancee and I want the American Dream: to be married, have a family, and own a home. I’m still a student, and she has some debt, so the home-owning part of the dream is beyond us right now. My suggestion: Instead of registering for wedding presents, we could ask our guests to contribute to the down payment on a house. My fiancee thinks this is tacky and rude -- although she has no problem with signing up to get crystal and china. What do you think? --Undercapitalized
Naturally, I let him have it:
What do I think? I think it’s like going to a bar and informing the person next to you, “Hey, in case you want to buy me a drink, I should let you know up front, I’d really rather have the cash.”Is this a celebration of love you’re planning, or Live Aid for the overspent middle class? If it’s the latter, don’t hold back. Make the receiving line double as a giving line by sticking an ATM at the beginning. Let no moment go unmerchandised: “For $80, you’ll get a DVD of our wedding night. For an extra $180, we’ll even throw in the bedroom scenes!” Don’t forget to offer your guests the option of a monthly direct-debit from their bank account, which may usher them up the tiers of giving; turning, say, gold-level friends into platinum ones.
You claim you’re after the American Dream -- the idea that, through hard work and determination, anybody can have a happy, prosperous life. Um, yes, but that’s supposed to be your own hard work and determination, not that of your friends. Some couples do ask their families to chip in for a down payment instead of a big wedding -- but, at what point do your parents get to be done feeding the upstretched palm? Then there’s the tacky new trend of setting up a Web site where wedding invitees can seamlessly pay for the couple’s home, honeymoon, and more. Suddenly, they’re not just your pals, they’re also your PayPals!
There are arguments for registering for gifts: it prevents a couple from ending up with 26 blenders, saves them when others’ bad taste is not exactly their bad taste, and it’s a relief for “friends” who’d scarcely recognize the bride but for the big white dress. But, maybe people who don't know you well enough to gift you without assistance have no business coming to your wedding. And frankly, if a wedding is about the love, not the loot, is it best celebrated with a flock of lead crystal butterflies, or the $14.95 John Gottman book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work? Of course, you two could also do with a few visits to a Certified Financial Planner so “’til death do us part” doesn’t become “’til debt do us part.”
This being America, not the Sudan, what do most of us reeeally need on top of what we already have? Will your love be meaningless if you express it in a rented one-bedroom apartment while eating on Target-ware instead of Wedgwood? Unless you’re dirt poor, why not tell your guests "love is all we need," and in lieu of gifts, suggest they donate to your favorite charity? Otherwise, maybe a truly meaningful wedding gift would be a letter from each guest, perhaps to bind into a book, with their hopes for your marriage; such as, that it will last longer than the payments they'd be making on that jewel-encrusted breadbox they would’ve ordered you from Tiffany’s.
Here's an excerpt from another one of my columns on the topic. The wedding I mention was my ex-assistant's:
You probably can't make your fiance stop pining for a three-story wedding cake with a sunken koi pond, but maybe you can eventually come to the agreement that "something borrowed" for your wedding shouldn't be $100,000. One of the happiest couples I know borrowed only a house for their wedding -- for a potluck dinner after they got married on the beach, surrounded by 40 of their closest friends. Their un-extravaganza took three weeks of planning and cost several hundred dollars -- if you add the cost of their clothes, several cases of Prosecco they picked up at a wine warehouse, and "a really nice chocolate cake."Maybe there's something to be said for the simple wedding you want -- one that's more a reflection of love than liens for years to come. It will free you up to focus on what really matters...which, maybe, just maybe, isn't whether the doves fly around on cue or just hop on the bride and groom statuette and do the number they usually do on your windshield.
Aw, c'mon, Amy. This isn't meant to call for "Witness" style barn-raising for every couple you know... But don't you think people would be more attentive as their friends picked mates if they knew they'd be paying for an early piece of their mortgage as opposed to an Ipod Nano or soemthing?
I'm all for giving to charities, but the rituals attending marriage should be focused on marriage. It's a sickly institution, and it needs all the thoughtful investment it can get.
Crid at April 27, 2006 2:25 AM
Geez,after that last story I'm feeling decadent for looking at the $400 complete package at Tahoe for Andrea and me.
mbruce at April 27, 2006 4:33 AM
I think asking for cash to pay for a down-payment for a home is tacky, and I think "Live Aid for the overspent middle class" is spot on. I could make a crack about Live Aid being for the "overspent ruling class" of poor countries. :-)
I like the wedding list scene from "Four Wedding and a Funeral" where the only item left is a massive ornament costing a stupid amount of money.
As customs go, it made sense when the couple were setting up their own home from scratch, but these days most couples live together before getting married, they tend to get married later anyway so it's not like neither of them has a stove, cutlery, bed linen or a TV set.
Antoine Clarke at April 27, 2006 5:44 AM
That's what I was thinking when I wrote this. Even at my churchmouse poorest, when I was a struggling writer, I had plates, silverware, a toaster, and a microwave.
As a person who doesn't believe in marriage, I don't get invited to a lot of weddings, and I have no idea if there are any stats on this (it may just be a prejudice), but people have told me that it's the huge, expensive weddings that eventually are "broken marriages."
Amy Alkon at April 27, 2006 5:54 AM
The witty and sagacious Judith Martin (aka Miss Manners) agrees with you, Amy. And so does the vapid and often clueless Dear Abby.
Asking for anything, anything at all, for a gift is tacky. But then again, so is registering. Let the guests give of themselves, and the correct response is "thank you."
But this is the age of tackiness, after all. Reality shows and whatnot. You and Miss Manners will have to be the staunch defenders of class and dignity, with the occassion inept bolster from Dear Abby.
Patrick at April 27, 2006 7:04 AM
When it's people you love who plainly love you back, worrying about tackiness is tacky, too. We need MORE connectedness in each other's lives.
Crid at April 27, 2006 9:23 AM
I don't believe Miss Manners is against registering- you can register, but you're supposed to be discreet about it (aka not sending out a list of registries with the invitation). Where you're registered is supposed to float through the invited by word of mouth from the wedding party.
And YES, asking for money is tacky. I'm young (23), and some of my friends are already getting married- one sent out an e-mail/MySpace message saying, Hey guys, we're registered at Target, but what we REALLY want is cash for our honeymoon. I am not kidding. Don't these people have parents to tell them what's tacky and what's not? My mother would shoot me if I ever THOUGHT of asking my wedding guests for money.
MissPinkKate at April 27, 2006 12:41 PM
My favorites are the people who specify exactly which make/model of gadgets they want, such as a recent wedding invitation we got where the young couple specified a certain $595.00 fruit and vegetable carving set.
Or the 800 thread count sheets if you are on a budget.
eric at April 27, 2006 1:04 PM
One thing the gift registry does is offer the couple a little damage control. When we got married, we didn't need anything but we were well aware that we couldn't stop co-workers from giving us gifts. So many of those co-workers had Precious Moments crap on their desks and embroidered toilet paper cozies in their homes - we were scared. Kind of like Amy said about their bad taste not being our bad taste. So signing up at Target and listing things like measuring cups and potholders worked really well. We got useful things that didn't cost a lot and were in styles and colors that were reasonable. The gift-givers got the satisfaction of giving items they knew we wanted, and then got a sincere thanks from us.
The thing that kills me is serial marriers who think that they should get gifts for each marriage. My husband and I gave his brother a book on the plight of the original Hawaiian people for his second wedding. It was kinda mean because he had seduced his second wife with a trip to Hawaii - before she was quite divorced from the first hubbby.
Harris Pilton at April 27, 2006 1:15 PM
I did a story a few months back in which a caterer, asked to offer ideas on how couples could save on a wedding spread, suggested that guests "sponsor" various courses. That is, say, a little card on the buffet line: This poached salmon brought to you by the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Clueless Morons... I was aghast; he said it was catching on. Evidently.
Nance at April 27, 2006 8:44 PM
Eeeeuw! How horrible!
Amy Alkon at April 27, 2006 11:45 PM
Once again, Amy, I've got to say that your advice is terrific, and it's nice to finally see someone that thinks that registration for anything is tacky, period. (I have some long and ugly stories about a former cow-irker who shanghai-ed people at work into paying for tickets to her bridal shower by putting them on the spot, and then how another former cow-irker, who was a friend of the offending bride, showed up demanding payment from everyone in the department for a rather pricey baby registry item nine months later.)
I also wanted to echo your sentiments that the most expensive, detail-oriented weddings seem to be the ones that are wrought with the most flaws from the beginning. It usually (in my experience) seems that the brides that turn into primadonnas when they walk down the aisle are in it more for the wedding than the marriage itself. Sad, really. Thanks again for standing up for good taste, and calling a spade a spade!
P.S. I still haven't tried that Buddy Wash shampoo; I ordered it before I left on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and when I came back, drugstore.com had sent me a vibrator for someone else instead! (I ordered it through ValleyVet this time; here's hoping an equine stimulator isn't sent along!)
Kim at April 28, 2006 7:40 PM
Thanks so much, Kim. (And that's pretty funny about the vibrator!)
Tickets to the bridal shower? Horrifying!
Amy Alkon at April 29, 2006 12:27 AM
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