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Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 1:26pm
by Oldjohnw
Perhaps I'm just a grumpy old man but I get fed up with getting wedding invitations (3rd this year today) from young relatives saying "we don't want a wedding present but you might like to send us money so that we can spend three weeks in Thailand/Australia/African Safari (today's offering).

Obviously not heard of pollution.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 7:48pm
by merseymouth
Hi there, I could get much worse?
After getting an invite to a relatives wedding, having as PG Wodehouse would say - "Dispatched the usual fish slice", it got worse.
At the reception there was an announcement promoting a whip round for the honeymoon! :roll: .
I faked an urgent need for the toilet, exit stage left.
The social media is apparently stuffed with bleeding heart stuff over weddings. My daughter told me about one woman who requested very silly money from all invited guests to cover her dream wedding, a very obscene sum that escapes my aging brain. The groom dumped her to rousing applause on the web.
But sometimes you get really let down? My late father promised me the first weeks rent when I got hitched. I told him I wished to clear our mortgage during week one! He never coughed up :lol: :lol: :lol: . TTFN MM

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 8:02pm
by Paulatic
I’ve declined the invitation to go when the wedding invite says £x for honeymoon to 'name your exotic place.
We were married in a registry office and run to a meal for 24 people in a local pub. No honeymoon, it was nearly lambing time, in fact no holiday for the next nine years.
It’s supposed to be a marriage not some re-enactment of a Disney film I won’t be party to it.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 8:42pm
by Oldjohnw
Paulatic wrote:I’ve declined the invitation to go when the wedding invite says £x for honeymoon to 'name your exotic place.
We were married in a registry office and run to a meal for 24 people in a local pub. No honeymoon, it was nearly lambing time, in fact no holiday for the next nine years.
It’s supposed to be a marriage not some re-enactment of a Disney film I won’t be party to it.


The quality of the marriage does not depend on the cost of the wedding or the exclusiveness of the honeymoon.

A week walking in the Lake District worked for me 47 years ago.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 8:43pm
by Oldjohnw
merseymouth wrote:Hi there, I could get much worse?
After getting an invite to a relatives wedding, having as PG Wodehouse would say - "Dispatched the usual fish slice", it got worse.
At the reception there was an announcement promoting a whip round for the honeymoon! :roll: .
I faked an urgent need for the toilet, exit stage left.
The social media is apparently stuffed with bleeding heart stuff over weddings. My daughter told me about one woman who requested very silly money from all invited guests to cover her dream wedding, a very obscene sum that escapes my aging brain. The groom dumped her to rousing applause on the web.
But sometimes you get really let down? My late father promised me the first weeks rent when I got hitched. I told him I wished to clear our mortgage during week one! He never coughed up :lol: :lol: :lol: . TTFN MM


:D :)

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 10:30pm
by Tangled Metal
Well we saved our family the cost of a wedding present each.

My mum tried one last attempt at pursuading us to get married when she realised we'd lost some cutlery or plates and didn't have enough. She said that if we'd got married we'd have all these things as wedding presents.

The question is whether it is worth going through an outdated, slightly mysoginistic ceremony that's against your personal views just to get free house stuff (and possibly bike stuff)?

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 11:21pm
by drossall
I think it's absolutely worth going through a public declaration of your permanent commitment to each other, in front of family and friends who are also directly affected by the fact that you are now a long-term couple. (Of course, they may have got an inling of that already, but that's not the same as declaring it.)

So I'm somewhat inclined to agree that doing it somewhere easily accessible to those same family and friends is a reasonable approach.

Gifts and the size/cost of the party are secondary, it's true, although I'm really grateful for both in our case.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 11:42pm
by Mike_Ayling
Well as the thread started on 8 May I have to advise that Mary and I married on 8 May 1971 at St Augustines Church Hammersmith.
Being a Sarf Efrican at the time who followed rugby union and Mary not interested in sport at all we did not realise that it was the Cup final that Saturday.
Anyway there were a number of those pocket size transistor radios on view both in the church and later at the pub where finger food was served.
We did have a honeymoon on the ship travelling to South Africa which we paid for ourselves.

Most of the modern young people have a great sense of entitlement, hence the what may seem outrageous requests so some one this forum to fund their honeymoons.

IMO we started on the whole slippery slope when they began with the wedding present "list"at the local department store.
If the fish slice was already spoken for you had to go up market to the next least expensive item!

Mike

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 8 May 2019, 11:51pm
by drossall
And we still have many of those much-appreciated items, almost 36 years later :D

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 9 May 2019, 12:08am
by Tangled Metal
Oh I think family and friends can detect your commitment level after years living as a couple with a child too. Public declaration to get the paperwork is really a pointless exercise in terms of letting your family know your status. It's about getting the legal status only. IMHO I believe it shouldn't be needed. There should be a simple form to fill in and send off to get any of the real benefits of being couple and married such as tax benefits, next if kin rights and parental rights if you're male. There may be other rights conferred on couples through marriage.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 9 May 2019, 1:18am
by Oldjohnw
Tangled Metal wrote:
The question is whether it is worth going through an outdated, slightly mysoginistic ceremony that's against your personal views just to get free house stuff (and possibly bike stuff)?


That is a point of view: just not one I share but it is your privilege.

The moral dilemma is, should I help pay for something which I won't do my self in principle? Quite apart from the ugly consumerism.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 9 May 2019, 8:03am
by drossall
Tangled Metal wrote:Oh I think family and friends can detect your commitment level after years living as a couple with a child too.

Of course they can. But we wanted to tell ours from the start, rather than let them work it out. I think relationships affect, involve, and benefit from the support of, those around you.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 9 May 2019, 8:22am
by Ben@Forest
Tangled Metal wrote:Public declaration to get the paperwork is really a pointless exercise in terms of letting your family know your status. It's about getting the legal status only. IMHO I believe it shouldn't be needed. There should be a simple form to fill in and send off to get any of the real benefits of being couple and married such as tax benefits, next if kin rights and parental rights if you're male. There may be other rights conferred on couples through marriage.


I know two long term couples who married after health scares and because marriage makes things simpler if the worst happens.

I think a public declaration which involves turning up to see a vicar or registrar is eminently sensible. It helps prevent fraud and very off-the-cuff decisions if it was as simple as filling in a form. As the church service, at least, says, 'marriage is not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly' and requiring some interaction with officialdom must help that.

And marriages do not have to be expensive or require presents. One of the couples l mentioned above did nothing but go for a meal for them and the witnesses after being married at a registry office.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 9 May 2019, 8:26am
by Tangled Metal
drossall wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:Oh I think family and friends can detect your commitment level after years living as a couple with a child too.

Of course they can. But we wanted to tell ours from the start, rather than let them work it out. I think relationships affect, involve, and benefit from the support of, those around you.

Oh you'll be surprised what people work out. I bet family and friends who know you well had worked out the situation before you're engagement announcement and wedding. If they didn't they're probably not as close to you as you think.

Sorry if that's being too blunt.

Re: Wedding presents

Posted: 9 May 2019, 8:43am
by Tangled Metal
Ben@Forest wrote:
Tangled Metal wrote:Public declaration to get the paperwork is really a pointless exercise in terms of letting your family know your status. It's about getting the legal status only. IMHO I believe it shouldn't be needed. There should be a simple form to fill in and send off to get any of the real benefits of being couple and married such as tax benefits, next if kin rights and parental rights if you're male. There may be other rights conferred on couples through marriage.


I know two long term couples who married after health scares and because marriage makes things simpler if the worst happens.

I think a public declaration which involves turning up to see a vicar or registrar is eminently sensible. It helps prevent fraud and very off-the-cuff decisions if it was as simple as filling in a form. As the church service, at least, says, 'marriage is not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly' and requiring some interaction with officialdom must help that.

And marriages do not have to be expensive or require presents. One of the couples l mentioned above did nothing but go for a meal for them and the witnesses after being married at a registry office.

If you think filling a form out isn't serious enough for you then how serious do you take tax assessment forms? I hope you tax any tax declaration serious even though it's just a form.

My point is about separating the aspects of commitment relevant to the state and legal rights from the aspects relating to telling your family and God that you're a couple. Marriage has a religious origin and religion still lays claim to it. I say let them have that part and take the official part out for a more practical and efficient process. Even take it out to the point it's needed. By that I mean if you're claiming whatever tax benefits marriage gives you then allow for the declaration of commitment to be on that form. Make registration of next of kin status as easy as having your doctor's practise record it on your medical records. If someone lives as a couple with someone right up to end of life stage then why question their status without the same levels of concern over patient's interests as you'd apply even to spouses?

Just some examples I can think of that may or may not be right.

It's just that marriage has a history and that history is prejudicial to equality in the opinion of many people. But in order to access legal benefits you need the marriage certificate (or equivalent civil ceremony documentation). I just think marriage should be separated out as a ceremony without legal status then all the other aspects dealt with in a more modern way. Let people declare their coupledom to family and friends of that's their wish but give it no more legal or official weight than a party to warm their new house.