Weddingbee Blog

Cherry Blossom - Technically a gift should never be expected, but yes, you still bring a gift to the wedding reception.

sdbride - Range is the key. If you have a bunch of 100-200 dollar items and a sofa, that may look odd. I think it’s growing increasingly acceptable to put a big ticket item on the registry as completion programs are promoted. Anyway, if it were my crowd, I would need to add some 20-100 dollar range items. For the record, we put a bed on ours at PB.

mj0901 - Never heard of it and as a youngin’ who is saving for her own home, I don’t know how I’d feel about this. Help us buy our home…when we should technically be set in order to buy one? I think that you should consider cash gifts as a mortgage gift and call it a day. In fact, if I got a thank you that said, “thank you for your kid gift that we’ll put toward our new home”–beautiful.

Nicole - Visit my blog by clicking on my name, and click on advice in the tags. I posted recently about steps after getting engaged. Quite honestly, I didn’t use a planner. I started with the budget and venue, then the guestlist. Those are the big three, I’d say. The Knot has a checklist, too, that I haven’t used but some find useful. I am a fan if nothing else, of Marth Stewart’s or Karen Bussen’s planners (I own both).

Laura - I’d give her a gift as she’ll have done just as much if not more than a bridesmaid or groomsman would.

C - honestly, I think you’re going to be ok. If your announcement was phrased as such, then ther’es nothing wrong with that at all. Announcements were quite common at one time but have fallen out of fashion recently. if someone really wants to gripe about the quality of paper, then let them. It’s your wedding and you’re sticking to your budget, it’s not like some people got gorgeous cardstock and others got typing paper…. I think you’ll be ok.

Cherry Blossom - they are two seperate events, both of which are normally ones that you would gift at. Of course, it is up to you if you’d like to give a gift or not, but I have always gotten both shower and wedding gifts for those that I have been invited to.

Miss Melodious - I got mine from Bra Tenders in NYC, they have an online store, and it may be worth a call to them to see what they recommend, they were amazing. I’m wearing a bustier, really sucks it all in and gives great support (I’m an F cup) while still having a smooth line without ties as in a corset (my dress would show them)

c - good news: you’re not going to hell. lol. you could follow emily post’s words of advice to the tee and still offend someone. i just feel like you stress yourself out more than necessary when trying to perfectly follow the rules. don’t worry about paper costs or anything and just go with what you like best and that would represent you two. i honestly don’t look at the invites for more than they are…information that’ll eventually eventually end up in the trash [very harsh i know but true - i've only kept really close friends' invites]. so just breathe, relax, and just plan with no worries about what anyone else will think; just worry about the stuff you can control. good luck!

cherry blossom - i’ve always seen the reception gift drop-off as a last chance to bring your gift. if i know the bride really well, i’ll buy a personal, smaller gift for the shower and then pick something from the registry for the couple but that’s always sent directly to the couple. otherwise, i’d just bring a registry gift to the shower and be done. i may get shot down by others but i just don’t see the point in buying two registry gifts for the same occasion.

laura - a thank you gift would be a great thing. what kinds of things is she interested in? if she is of the note/letter writing ilk, a nice stationary set would be a great idea and so forth. think of her interests and tailor a gift towards that.

Nicole–I plopped myself down in the wedding aisle of the local library and flipped through everything. You can fairly quickly see if a book just plain ol’ isn’t going to apply to you. I checked out six or seven, and only ever used one: Weddings for Grown-Ups. In fact, I renewed the book so many times (and wanted so badly to write in the margins) that I ended up buying my own copy–from Amazon marketplace, for a penny.

1. Cherry Blossom - in my community, you give one gift, and that’s that. As a bride-to-be, I am just so grateful for anything that anyone gives me, and I feel like it’s greedy to ask people to shell out for the shower if they’re expected to bring a gift to the wedding as well. I say that if you are in a community that doesn’t have an established way of doing things, you set the trend, and set the trend for simplicity.

3. sdbride - Register for it, and if anyone asks, tell them that you’re planning to buy it with the completion discount. But also, like it’s been said, you may want to consider registering for some lower-dollar items as well. The gifts I’ve been getting are mostly in the $30-50 range.

4. Nicole - I found “Cheap Ways to Tie the Knot” to be moderately helpful. I also met with a lady at my church who has been mother of the bride three times and with friends who have gotten married in the past couple years. I found talking to real people to be VERY helpful, especially because they already knew the issues particular to my community.

Hope this helps!
~Q

Thanks for the help re: the sofa. No worrying about lower amount gifts; my original question was edited to make it mean something different re: the $ range on the registry. I said my other big ticket items are only around 200, with the average gift price around 100 (but there’s lots of things under 100; under 50 too).

I probably am! I guess I assumed people would simply understand we and our families wanted to share our happiness with people we thought would care. But after reading pages and pages of people complaining they believe they only received an announcement or an invite- or even an email or a christmas card- because they suspect the sender just wanted a gift (or people like the woman who tossed an invite straight in the trash because she thought it was ludicrous to recieve an invite from a long-term couple’s son to see his parents marry) … people snickering about naming mishaps or forgotten significant others in cases where the bride to be was probably doing the best she could from some scrawled chickenscratch her future mother in law gave her… it’s enough to make me paranoid! Mostly, though, there’s this whole 50% of our mailing list / potential future guest list I don’t want to offend before I even get a chance to meet them. Honestly, I can’t believe how many noses seem to be out there, poised to sniff at hopeless brides and their “cheap” papers and “cut-rate” receptions supposedly designed to engineer gifts from wealthier relations! So much for celebrating LOVE… apparently, anything less than $150 a head for every man, woman, and child who sets foot into the reception venue = “gift grab” in some people’s minds. I guess I though it was normal that the occassion of the biggest celebration you’ll ever host in your adult life inspired you to look up a few friends you’d started to lose touch with after college, or what have you… it’s not going to stop me, but it does make me hesitate a bit before dropping those cards in the mailbox :-/

Hi! I am looking for very unique readings for my destination & civil ceremony. We’d like our brother & sister to read this after we exchange our vows. Everything I’ve read in books sound like stuff I’ve heard in movies..

Thanks,

Ack–clarifying; by “get” in the first sentence I meant “give” or “purchase for the bride/groom.”

What does the wedding planner typically do when everyone’s eating dinner? I of course want to serve her a regular dinner, but I’m not sure when the planners typically eat and if everyone just sets out a regular place setting for the planner at a table.