If you can't afford to spend enough to cover a meal for the people you want present to see you get married, you can't afford to get married.

It seems YOU are still angry at the folks who did not give wedding gifts to your siblings. How do your siblings feel about this? And this is YOUR business because....?

I don't know you and am very pleased that I don't. You seem to be a nasty person with an inflated sense of entitlement. Your groom has my condolences. I give your marriage six months.

A bit that didn't make it into the column:

New York City friends of mine threw their wedding in their backyard of their cabin in the Catskills. Then, for the reception, there was a tent in the front yard with trays of corn on the cob and BBQ. It was the sweetest wedding I’ve ever been to -- and certainly the least expensive. But because wedding presents ideally come from the heart and not the calculator, I got them a really nice present -- a boxed set of The Complete Gary Larson, instead of, say, a couple of gift certificates for lunch at Taco Bell.

Gawd yes. What is it with $100-per-plate catered weddings for hundreds of guests? It's usually young people doing this - they can't pay for it themselves, so they apparently like spending your parents' retirement fund.

That one day, your wedding day, is not important. It's what comes after that matters.

Justice of the peace. A nice lunch, in an ordinary restaurant, with no more than a dozen friends/family. Done. Meanwhile, you or your parents have $20 saved, that can be used for more important things.

I totally agree with Elizabeth Falkner. What kind of greedy, self absorbed jerk would even think up such a thing. I can see it now - the first anniversary (IF they make it that long) "Dammit, all I've done for you this past year and all you can get me is a 6 carat canary diamond ring with matching earrings?! I'm worth more than that. There'd better a new Bentley in that drive way when I get home OR ELSE!!!!!"

Or something like that.

"What gets lost in this struggle to out-lavish the competition is the point of the wedding -- publicly joining two people in marriage, not separating their friends and relatives from as much cash as possible."

Bravo. Standing ovation. Maestro!

These days, my wife and I routinely send regrets in response to wedding invitations. Ceremonies drag on and on, as the couple attempts to recite their poorly-memorized and silly "personalized" vows. Then there's the reception, with rubber chicken, watered-down drinks, a crappy band, a postage-stamp-sized dance floor, and there's always a bridegroom who gets smashed and wants to fight someone, and the bridesmaid who gets smashed and barfs at her table. And then, a few weeks later, we hear through the grapevine that the bride didn't like our gift, even though it was something that was on her registry. We won't even get into the "destination" wedding, where the guests are expected to spend thousands on travel to reach the exotic location where the wedding will be. Why bother?

I don't know anyone like this. Should I worry?

I don't know anyone like this. Should I worry?

The person I feel sorry for is her intended. As soon as his 'contribution' starts to fall short, he is like as not going to get the old 'heave Ho'.

As someone who had a big wedding, I still think LW is being gross. We picked a caterer we could afford and invited people we loved.

I literally could not tell you who didn't bring a gift, let alone whether each gift "covered" the cost of hosting that guest. And, because our friends and family are all over the world and so many traveled to be there, I NEVER expected gifts from people who had to spend on gas or plane tickets. Seeing them was a gift.

"Enough to cover the plate," what is that garbage? Throw whatever wedding you decide to throw (or elope), but don't expect people to "contribute." We just bought a house, and we don't expect overnight guests to pay their "share" of our mortgage. Pay for your own damn life decisions.

Maybe she should charge admission.
Pig.

Charge admission? I suspect she is more likely to hold the guests hostage until ransom is paid.

I can't believe that this bridezilla, before writing to Amy, didn't look up the "cover your plate" concept online and see how every etiquette expert in the world shoots it down.

My daughter got married last year. Simple wedding at a facility owned by the city where we live. Our rental fee was $100 - there was a $500 deposit. We had to provide security because beer and wine were being served. We had Famous Dave's cater the food for 175 (both sides have large families). Really, it was a reason to have all the family together in one place for a party...and party we did. Her dress was the most expensive thing and even that we got a deal on because a family friend owns a wedding dress salon. Her best friend's dad performed the ceremony and bridesmaid dresses were $60. It was a beautiful wedding, and the end result was the same whether I had spent $20k, or like we did, under $5k.

The best part was, a year later, one of my daughter's bridesmaids got married. This particular bridesmaid specifically asked to keep the price of the bridesmaid dress low, because she didn't have a lot of money. My daughter's bridesmaid dress for that friend's wedding was $200! They "broke up" after the wedding because that friend was a total bridezilla.

Angry Bride, what are you really mad about?

It's not the guests - if you had guests, they would be under no obligation to do anything but attend, extending their courtesy to you by saying they will be there and endorsing your union with their presence.

Not presents.

You have no heart, or it is turned off, having been assured it needs do nothing because you're entitled to the attention and things of others.

Maybe the LW could spit on the offending guests in the reception line?

Just a thought.

I went to my nieces' wedding a few years ago. Her and her husband are nice people and just wanted to have a nice wedding for their family and friends. The parents of the groom were "parentzillas". The couple almost eloped because the grooms parents wanted to control everything. They ended up letting these parents control a lot. I remember going to the reception and getting a plate of appetizers for me and my husband (they only served appetizers). The grooms mother chided me for having two plates of food because some people hadn't been served yet and there wasn't enough for everyone. They invited 50 people and decided that they would only order enough for 25 people because they were sure that only half would show up since it was in another state. All 50 people showed up. There were a couple of other incidences on top of that. These parents were the most ungracious and stingy people I've ever met. Like I said, the bride and groom are very nice people. I think if they had to do it all over again, they would have done their wedding a lot differently. I don't ever want to see those particular parents again.

The bride and groom likely didn't want to see much of the parentzillas either. Becky, what happened when they become grandparentzillas?

My parents and my husband's parents were religious Jews and managed to sneakily register my first daughter at their shuls. Never mind that my husband and I were atheists, they felt they HAD to do this. This was in the 1950s, and we had little to do with them after we found out.

I am probably registered somewhere and wonder if I can UNregister after 80 years.

Some time before a wedding one year, I dutifully went to the designated registry at the retailer of their choice and, via that registry, bought Item X for them.

At the wedding, the bride thanked me for the "extra X". Extra? I think I said it had still been marked as unpurchased before I bought it, but didn't press the point past that.

But she still made a point of calling it that in her thank you note later.

I can only guess another guest saw the item in the registry but didn't buy it VIA the registry, so it didn't get checked off....and she happened to open that giftbox first, thus making mine "extra" by pure chance. Even though I had been the one to do it properly.

Never had anything to do with her after that.

There a few types of guests that you need at a wedding that are worth losing money on.

The drunk groomsman: your wedding wasn't epic if you got the entire deposit back from the Men's Wearhouse.

The Jiggy uncle: someone has to dance to Celebration, Billy Jean, AND Sir Mix-a-lot.

The unscrupulous college buddy: someone has to hit on your single aunt.

The speechwriter: You had better have someone lined up who will give the vaguely inappropriate speech laden with in-jokes and back-handed compliments.

The big tippers you're after are going to be bores, you need to add a few boors.

@smurfy Jiggy Uncle is a must. At my cousin's wedding, my husband got drunk and spent the night as Jiggy Uncle's sidekick. They eventually had a how-low-can-you-go contest during "Shout" and neither could get up unassisted. Uncle due to his knee. Husband due to the whiskey.

I would add "Future party girl" to this list of wedding must-haves -- the five-year-old flower girl who's more turnt than a 19-year-old sorority chick and gets the dance floor going before the adults are drunk enough.

As long as we're adding the "must-haves", how about the jealous sister/cousin/bridesmaid/friend?

Just add liquor and watch the fireworks. Frankly I'm surprised there isn't more gunplay at weddings.

Backyard weddings can end up bein just as expensive because you have to rent a tent, tables, chairs etc and most venues have those things already.

Your friends wedding may not have been as cheap as you think it was

I liked the comment about spitting on the guests as they pass through the reception line... hahaha seriously just get it over with because that's what it is! So funny, write more, Gog.