Wedding Present Lists

[buntyman]

I'm looking for some advice please. My sister's getting married in a couple of weeks and has issued everyone with a website address linking to her John Lewis list of stuff she and her fiancée want. I'm currently a bit strapped for cash and will be on the old 'rock n roll' til July when my new job starts and all the stuff on this list seems to be a bit pricey. I'm loathed to fork out £80 for a couple of pillow cases and a knife (of a set of 5) so think i'm going to have to ditch the list and look elsewhere.
Anyone here had a similar experience and come up trumps with a gift idea? I'm 24 and pretty ignorant when it comes to tasteful decorative pieces and don't have to dough for trendy electronic gadgetry. Any suggestions of what might be and an appropriate, affordable and presentable wedding gift would be well appreciated. 

[chocky909]

£20 note in a nice envelope? Get a fresh one from the bank.

[buntyman]

ha - or I could just give them my fortnight's DWP giro cheque along with my blessing. That way they could get their fresh currency in whatever denomination they like. Seriously though, i'm running out of time on this one. There must be some married people or tight-fisted wedding goers here.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

If I was on the dole I would have no problem with just telling my sister to fuck off if she expected me to be shelling out loads of money to buy her overpriced homewares from John Lewis. Go down to Sainsbury's and buy her a set of basics wine glasses (they probably cost something like £2 for 4 or something). She won't know the difference between the basics ones and an expensive set of John Lewis ones until they shatter when she tries to pick them up.

[Steve Lampkins]

I had a wedding list, but there was a wide range of prices, and it was a very loose guide about the 'kind of things' we would have needed/appreciated. We got a fair few things from it, but were not put out in the least if someone didn't. The only thing that could have gone wrong (but didn't) is if say we had a toaster on the list and 3 people got us one, but not from the list. If someone buys something from the list, other people can see it's been taken / or it is not on the list anymore.

Have you any nice pics of them? Maybe get some blown up, or just nicely framed?

[mook]

Wedding lists are a bugbear of mine, I've got two weddings to attend this summer, in both cases the couples have been living together for years and own their own houses, so by rights should have managed to accrue all the trappings you should need for modern living, but Oh no the greedy fuckers want us to stump up for things like a Dualit toaster and a fucking £900 coffee table! Fuck 'em the cheeky gits, they'll be getting some napkin rings and be done with it.

As for the OP couldn't you just tell your sis you're strapped for cash until you start work and will buy them something nice once you get yourself sorted?

[Emma Raducanu]

My wedding list will be on Amazon.

[waste of chops]

My wedding list will be on Amazon.

So you don't end up with the social embarassment of two people buying you that Seinfeld boxset?

[Emma Raducanu]

No, because I don't like toast.

[sproggy]

How about promising them a couple of days of your time (stick an IOU in a card), helping move or re-decorating their house, there's always stuff newly married couples want to do to their houses/flats etc.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

You could offer to film their wedding night for posterity.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

The true riches they have is the love between them, and no gift could be greater than that. So just write that down and post it to them in lieu of any present.

[wherearethespoons]

Make a big thing about not being able to go. Invent something that you have no way of getting out of (or pretend she's pissed you off/start an argument). Then on the big day, turn up as a 'surprise' - which should be good enough anyway - explaining 'Sorry, I didn't bring a present, it was a last minute rush to even make it here.'

[Cupid Stunt]

Buy a goat for an African or something.  One of those Oxfam thingies.  They can't really object to charity without looking like grasping selfish consumertrons who are cheapening their wedding with greed (heaven forfend!) and you get to look all noble and altruistic and they won't have to know how much money you've (not) spent.

[buntyman]

Buy a goat for an African or something.  One of those Oxfam thingies.  They can't really object to charity without looking like grasping selfish consumertrons who are cheapening their wedding with greed (heaven forfend!) and you get to look all noble and altruistic and they won't have to know how much money you've (not) spent.

That's inspired! I like your thinking, maybe I could even adopt them an African child for life via a similar oxfam program. I could pay for the first year of schooling and leave the rest up to them.
A few good suggestions here so thanks for that. I wasn't expecting anything serious but at least i can think about some of these ideas and chuckle while i'm in a queue with a 50 nicker lampshade in my hand.

[Jemble Fred]

It's my brother's wedding on Saturday, and they've requested a bit of money from everyone to pay for the wedding. Thing is though, the amount I could afford to hand over would just look pathetic, so they'll have a reasonably nice present for 20-odd quid and like it.

[Borboski]

If the list is all gone, or too expensive, then a hamper is quite a nice present.  You can order them online, and could pick something up for £20, or  a little more, I'm sure.

If they're going away on honeymoon it's quite a nice present to receive on their return.

[buntyman]

If the list is all gone, or too expensive, then a hamper is quite a nice present.  You can order them online, and could pick something up for £20, or  a little more, I'm sure.

If they're going away on honeymoon it's quite a nice present to receive on their return.

I like the sound of that. Any website you could recommend for that?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Just make them a card from bits of dry pasta stuck some cardboard. Remember to use LOTS of glitter because it is your sister's special day.

[Borboski]

Can't remember who I used - will have just popped "hampers" into google.  If you do go for it though, it might be worth delivering to their work address - I delivered to someone's flat, who didn't pick it up, and it cost me another tenner to have it re-delivered.   I still think it was a good prezzie though, and you can go for pasta/coffee/biscuits etc rather than fresh meat if you're worried about it not being refridgerated.

[gazzyk1ns]

All wedding lists I've ever had to buy from have taken the piss ridiculously, it's a real mutual pillage by the couple in question and the shops. Not that I believe the couple usually think about it in that sort of way, but still. A couple of years ago I ended up having to pay nearly £30 for a set of 4 nice-ish plates, because there was nothing else appropriate left on the list. My alternatives were something like a £4 pair of fishknives which someone had bizarrely elected not to buy them in addition to the other special fish-eating gear which they'd got; or of course to deviate from the wedding list. I imagine if I'd done that then I'd have been a) viewed as some sort of social misfit who doesn't understand or want to follow a simple process and b) talked about as some sort of penniless loser who clearly had to buy a present from the 50p shop because he couldn't even afford the fishknives, no matter what I actually bought.

[wheatgod]

Being only 21, I'm yet to attend any weddings as a gift giver. But if you ask me, wedding lists are a load of shite. You're getting married, well done, I'll come to the party and I wish you well. But you can go buy your own fucking bread maker, thankyouverymuch.

[mook]

All wedding lists I've ever had to buy from have taken the piss ridiculously, it's a real mutual pillage by the couple in question and the shops. Not that I believe the couple usually think about it in that sort of way, but still. A couple of years ago I ended up having to pay nearly £30 for a set of 4 nice-ish plates, because there was nothing else appropriate left on the list. My alternatives were something like a £4 pair of fishknives which someone had bizarrely elected not to buy them in addition to the other special fish-eating gear which they'd got; or of course to deviate from the wedding list. I imagine if I'd done that then I'd have been a) viewed as some sort of social misfit who doesn't understand or want to follow a simple process and b) talked about as some sort of penniless loser who clearly had to buy a present from the 50p shop because he couldn't even afford the fishknives, no matter what I actually bought.

That's my whole problem with wedding lists summed up there. Things like fish knives at four quid a pop that will end up languishing at the bottom of cutlery drawer for fuck knows how long before they get aorund to cutting up a frozen scampi and not being used for what they were intended.. The whole wedding thing makes me want to puke, I've no problem with helping out a couple just starting out in life together, but fuck those who've been together for ten years plus and now feel it's time to show the world how committed they are to one another. Cunts, not only to I have to buy the shits a present, I've got to shell out for a new frock and shoes for the missus, no doubt I've gone from a 34" to a 36" waist so that's a brand new suit to boot. It's a load of bollocks. All told the day has cost me the best part of a grand and I've nothing to show for it apart from a plateful of crap food I could cook 10x better at home and a fucking hangover from drinking crap champagne, and after all that half the cunts who make you go through this split up in 3 years anyway. It's all bollocks I tells ya.

[The Mumbler]

In my experience, the more extravagant the wedding list, the more likely the marriage is to end horribly. Within a year or two.



Modest gifts can be found in local shops too. Like Mr Patel's on Richmond Hill!!!

[buntyman]

Yes its definitely the whole completely impresonal list thing that bothers me rather than buying wedding presents in general. I have no objection to listing a few obvious items so as not to get duplicate gifts eg. kettles, toasters etc but going on a John Lewis trolley dash to refurnish your house is reprehensible.  There also isn't any way to avoid getting duplicates anyway as the items disappear from the list once they are bought (and reappear on a private list for the bride and groom that displays the item, price and who bought it). John Lewis probably provide the newly weds a standard letter template that automatically fills in the purchase data in the form of a thank you note that can be simply signed and posted off!

[daisy11]

Ikea wine glasses are ridiculously cheap, buy some glass paint, and da-daaaaaaa, get arty and da-daaaaa, hand-made gifts. If you can't paint/draw then dip the glasses in the paint, place one in each hand, spin about your room for 5 mins, and the resulting pattern is true art. Also, you could dilute the paint with your own urine for a more personal touch too. Ok, I'm getting silly now, am off.

[boki]

Vouchers, dude.

[hoverdonkey]

We didn't have a wedding list as such, but because we had to pay for the wedding ourselves (doing it cheaply in a registry office, hiring a lovely little restaurant for 50 people and hiring a room for the evening cost about 7K - I think the average is about 14K which is just a nonsense) we just asked people to contribute to a honeymoon fund, which they did, gladly. We then topped that fund up and went to Egypt for two weeks.

It all seemed to work really well, because it wasn't a traditional wedding. It was mid-December but a really lovely sunny, wintry day so we all walked from the registry office through Richmond and the Christmas shoppers to the river for photos and then onto the restaurant. Then we hired a bar for the evening, which worked much better than those horrible hotel rooms you normally get with those cusioned chairs and square wooden panel for a dancefloor.

Sorry, I'm waffling way off the point. It was just such a perfect day, I thought I'd relive it for a couple of minutes.

[chocky909]

Aaah. I bet you don't get divorced for years and years. ;)

[mr. nice guy]

The last wedding I went to had a little note at the bottom of the invitation saying - 'We require nothing more than your presence', which made me think 'The non-greedy cunts. I'm gonna buy them a half decent present now'