Wedding gift sparks controversy.

[sputnik]

Originally posted by heavyD
I think you guys are giving them far too much credit for just walking into the treats section of Superstor and spending $25 on junk food. If you think that's thoughtful or thinking outside of the box I suggest you stick to cash at any weddings you are invited to lol.

I stick with cash because I am lazy.

That said. When I got married I didn't get out the calculator to recalculate our net worth per guest invited.

[finboy]

Ugh, soooo classless to demand cash at a wedding, if you want to throw a party that costs tens of thousands, that cost is on YOU. I can't decide if that is worse than having a destination wedding then being pissed at people who won't pony up $2500+ to attend.

[sputnik]

Originally posted by ga16i


It is very much like a Ponzi scheme and can only continue if there's new blood, the whole thing will fall apart if you fail to extend the family line. Part of the reason why we're number one at human production haha. It's not just weddings either, it extends to New Years, birthdays, and other celebrations. If you're lucky enough to have lots of Aunts and Uncles, you should be rolling in it when you're a kid.

That was usually not the point, traditionally it was more a joining of families. It's just been the last few decades where it's moving towards being about the couple. I'd say as recently as my parent's generation when you first meet the potential parent inlaws they'll grill you about the occupations, home village and such of your grand parents and the rest of your family and ancestors. That stuff was serious business. Even today when you see the invites, it says the son/ daughter of such and such is getting married and the parents requests your presence, and at the banquet it's your family names that's being displayed e.g., Chan and Lee or something.

Chinese people should perhaps just think twice about inviting non-Chinese people to their wedding/money-exchange party.

Or at least reconsider on what terms they value their friendships.

[DeleriousZ]

Jesus fucking christ, some of you people are retarded.

A wedding is a ceremony to wed two individuals into one bonded pair. It's a celebration of their love for each other.

Getting pissed over wedding gifts is so incredibly shallow and greedy. Should just be happy enough that the people you invited showed up to celebrate with you.

[ga16i]

Originally posted by sputnik


Chinese people should perhaps just think twice about inviting non-Chinese people to their wedding/money-exchange party.

Or at least reconsider on what terms they value their friendships.

If non-Chinese are invited to the banquet, they are exempt from any Chinese customs and traditions. No one would think them weird for not participating, it's just not what the "non-Chinese" do and that's understood. They wouldn't be told anything, they'd just see red envelopes being given at guest registration. If you brought a gift, awesome it'll be kept with other valuables received, if not, no big deal. People in general don't bring a gift to the banquet anyway. Non-family of any sort is rarely present when gold is being given during the tea ceremonies.

If your Chinese hosts talks $hit about your gift to anyone, it'll be taken as a sign of ill manners and poor family upbringing and frowned upon. They'll probably get quite a talking to from their family for years to come haha.

[Kg810]

Originally posted by heavyD
I think you guys are giving them far too much credit for just walking into the treats section of Superstor and spending $25 on junk food. If you think that's thoughtful or thinking outside of the box I suggest you stick to cash at any weddings you are invited to lol.

This.

That gift is shit.

[civic_stylez]

The thing is, that wedding gift with cookies and sour patch kids would actually get used! Ive seen so many couples that have half their gifts in their basement still unused.

[anarchy]

Originally posted by SOAB
giving an actual gift is so old school. nobody need a toaster, or china or bedsheets or anything that you may think is clever. a gift basket like that is just tacky. the brides were right to be pissed but wrong with how they dealt with it.

if i choose to attend a wedding that i've been invited to, i will ALWAYS give enough cash to cover my meal and a little extra depending on how much i like the couple.

although, most weddings i attend have an open bar and a 10 course meal.

I don't agree with how bridezilla reacted, it's petty to send a text and ask for a receipt. What good is it to get $30 back from Superstore lol. Just suck it up and move on.

But honestly, that gift is garbage. I don't see any thought there whatsoever. It's a wedding, not a 8 year old's birthday party.

Maybe it's my Chinese tradition but I always cover my cost and then some - so $100 minimum. Not everyone will do that and that's just the way it is, nothing to get upset about.

[nickyh]

I had some people at my wedding that never even gave me a gift or anything. Who cares.

The point should be, it's a celebration of a union.

Yes, the is an "implied rule" that you pay your way but it's entirely up to the couple attending if they want to follow that.
I don't know your financial situation and am I supposed to present everyone with a breakdown of their food and booze. Are you supposed to also prorate the associated wedding costs right down to flowers to each guest as well?

[JRSC00LUDE]

Her "friends" have a monetary value attached to their worth.

What a cunt.

[Hallowed_point]

Originally posted by civic_stylez
The thing is, that wedding gift with cookies and sour patch kids would actually get used! Ive seen so many couples that have half their gifts in their basement still unused.

Very good point!!

[AndyL]

My issue with weddings these days - are mostly that people actually think of this is a "way to get money".

A (now former) friend of ours, actually decided they wanted to buy a house - so they got married... After 3 kids and 10 years of living together - This was their way to "rustle up a downpayment".

Now I say former - because yeah, we turned down the invitation, and request to be part of the wedding party... Or send a gift... When they outright tell you it's how they're funding their house downpayment; you know it's just an extortion attempt...

[Myrrinda]

I'd rather a box full of food than a toaster. I would also never base my guest list on what I hope to be able to extort from people. If I have friends that can't afford to buy me gifts, I'm not going to leave them off the list! That's crazy.

[thrasher22]

What a bitch! If a big part of the reason you're getting married is to make a bunch of money, start throwing separate parties and charge cover

I'm getting married next summer, and the guest gifts (should they feel so generous) have nothing to do with our budget. However if anyone asks about gifts/a registry, I'll always request cash. We live in a 600sq ft house, I don't want any more stuff.

[403Gemini]

Originally posted by finboy
Ugh, soooo classless to demand cash at a wedding, if you want to throw a party that costs tens of thousands, that cost is on YOU. I can't decide if that is worse than having a destination wedding then being pissed at people who won't pony up $2500+ to attend.

Haha I guess I'm pretty classless. I'm asking for just money for my wedding, but on the invitation it will be for "donations to our honeymoon" , we're not super high income and our vacation is typically a trip down to California, so it would be nice to go to Mexico or Hawaii with some of the money we collect from the wedding + what we typically spend on a trip to California.

We've lived with each other long enough that our house is full of everything we need, anything else we'd get would just be clutter.

That being said if I opened up an envelope and only got a $20.00 , I'd still be grateful because it's $20 I didn't have prior and I know not everybody can spend $100+ on every wedding they go to.

Originally posted by civic_stylez
The thing is, that wedding gift with cookies and sour patch kids would actually get used! Ive seen so many couples that have half their gifts in their basement still unused.

This as well, I would have consumed most of everything in that box within a week and enjoyed every minute of it lol

[Kaos]

All I'm going to say is... Marshmallow fluff. You can't fuck with that. It's priceless.

[Graham_A_M]

Originally posted by DeleriousZ
Jesus fucking christ, some of you people are retarded.

A wedding is a ceremony to wed two individuals into one bonded pair. It's a celebration of their love for each other.

Getting pissed over wedding gifts is so incredibly shallow and greedy. Should just be happy enough that the people you invited showed up to celebrate with you.

Very much agreed. Those bitches are utterly pathetic. Im glad as a couple of dikes they can't have kids, since that would be catastrophic. To raise children with that mentality is precisely what we don't need any more of.

I'd never ever (ever) invite people and expect to make money off of them, that's grossly selfish and tells me what they realistically value in friendships.
A marriage is a union of two people, and an awesome party held by those closest to the two people. Nothing more, yes it'll cost money, which is to be expected. To expect people to give you more then the cost of inviting them is grossly disrespectful.

[codetrap]

I had something like this happen.

The History: He and I went to NAIT together. I lived in Fort Saskatchewan and he lived in Sherwood Park. I went out of my way every day to pick him up on the way to NAIT, then dropped him off after school. Never asked him to cover gas money or contribute to parking expenses, or for maintenance costs. When we did stuff on the weekends, I'd always drive because I had a car, and he didn't. Never a dollar for gas money in 2 years. Before him and his g/f got married, I used to travel up to EDTN from Calgary regularly and would crash on their couch to visit, and usually ended up going out to the pub and I'd buy drinks/foods to say that's for the place to stay. Never did they drive down to Calgary to visit me. It was always too hard, or they were too busy, or they didn't have the cash to come down.

Back to the wedding:.. so I'm broke ass, barely scraping by supporting a g/f in ACAD taking glass, and trying to get the cash together for a wedding. I had literally had to replace my car the week before because my g/f wrecked it by loading a tiburon with a bunch of plate steel in the back. Bent car's don't drive straight.

I knew they had everything they needed, and they did register of course. I looked over the registry and there was nothing on it I could really afford. Knowing they were both gamers, I thought I'd try something out of the box. I searched high and low and found a copy of this old classic game that he always talked about. Finally found and original unopened box of it, and wrapped it up. I felt kinda bad about it, because I usually tried to be generous, but I just couldn't do any better. Went to the wedding, and had a good time. It was a cash bar at a hotel on the south side somewhere.. delta maybe? Didn't really see them during the wedding, but they were busy, so I didn't think too much of it. Then I was invited to come back up for a visit a week later. I tried to decline, because I didn't really have the gas money, but they insisted.

So, totally unsuspecting, I drive up for a visit. When I get there, something is a little off.. they've got all this really nice stuff stacked in boxes around their apartment. Then I got the "talk", explaining to me that my gift really sucked, and that I should be ashamed of myself, and how their family had spent so much money on these really nice gifts. They then started going over the values of the specific gifts, he had looked up the prices online, and how that I should have bought something that covered the cost of my plate. He had it all in a spreadsheet. Gift, person, cost. I was just stunned. I didn't know how to react. So, I just said sorry, grabbed my stuff and left. There was a couple of emails exchanged later, but it pretty much ended up being the end of that friendship.

After years of me laying out cash, ALWAYS being the guy that paid, NEVER asking for anything in return, this is what they got hung up on. The fact that I wasn't able to buy a really nice gift to pay for my plate because I simply couldn't afford it. To this day I'm hesitant about going to weddings because I don't want to offend by being too cheap, and I can't really afford to be too generous. I do make decent money, but a good 30% of my gross goes into savings for retirement, and another good chunk goes into paying off debt like cars/house/etc. So we keep track pretty carefully so we can have a good life. While I'd like to give a thousand dollar gift, I just can't afford that.

As an aside, for my wedding. I wanted to put "no gifts or cash, just you" on the invitations. I got overruled by my mom, wife, mother-in-law, and pretty much everyone on it. I just called everyone personally for the RSVP and told them verbally instead. People still brought gifts of course, I couldn't stop them, but I ensured that nobody felt ashamed if they couldn't afford it. I wanted THEM, not their cash, or their stuff.

[Disoblige]

Wow reading that makes me angry, mainly because I know people like this as well. Needless to say I don't hang out with those kinds of people anymore.

What kind of friends do that to each other..

Honestly, I wish some of my friends were more considerate, but it is what it is. I just don't pick up the tab as often any more because of it though. I totally want to, but the abuse of it totally turned me off.

[sexualbanana]

Originally posted by ga16i


Kind of... the Chinese anyway, we're supposed to respect our elders and the older you are the more you're supposed to give to the youngin's. So we'll stack our weddings with old people out of duty and obligation, but as a result the elders will pile on the cash and gold. If you're from an older generation and you receive an invite from someone from a younger generation, you're still obliged to send a gift even if you're not attending. It's a big circular clusterF@#$ determined by the bride and groom's parents. Your uncles (father's brothers) especially would not cheap out on you (your father's offspring) and he wouldn't cheap out on them. The same goes for the family friends that attend, sure there's somewhat large amounts of cash being moved around, but it ends up being fairly equal for everyone involved. Unless you're a childless couple. But then you'll get good will from your nephews and nieces instead. Which may not be a bad thing depending on your relationship in your old age.

For the most part, Chinese weddings are a display of how wealthy you (and your family) are because the entire Chinese culture centres around wealth and money. Hence why Chinese weddings often how so much fucking food.

Large Chinese weddings aren't uncommon because the bride and groom's parents will invite anyone and everyone that they have even the slightest connection to (think being a 3rd degree connection on LinkedIn), so it's not uncommon to go to a wedding where the bride and groom only know like 25% of the people there.

On the flip side, invitees don't want to look like they're not flush with wealth so they in turn will gift a large amount of cash or something extravagant.