Why I Won’t Be Buying My Friend a Wedding Present

First of all, let’s consider how the tradition of wedding presents came about. Historically they were given because young couples on their wedding day would be setting up a home together for the first time. And setting up a home is a big, expensive deal. So it made sense for more established, older relatives and friends to contribute to that household.

But times have changed. It is rare that a couple on their wedding day will be setting up their home for the first time. Often they’ve already lived together for years and have all the knife sets and plates that they need.

So then wedding presents became about an upgrade. My sister used her wedding as an opportunity to replace all the perfectly decent items in her house with objects from Habitat or John Lewis.

Wedding lists are now so commonplace and well-oiled that the couple barely even knows who bought them what. Guests find a link on a website, pay by card, and the gifts arrive at the couple’s house in a big shipment. Two months later the happy couple send out generic cards as thank yous.

Some brides and grooms decided to change tack. They decided that it’s not about gifts that they don’t need, it’s about the experience. So instead of a wedding list, they decided to ask for a contribution to their honeymoon. And this is what one of my friends and his wife decided to do. But instead of a straight cash contribution, they sent out a list of activities on their exotic holiday to the Bahamas and I bought them a “romantic candle-lit dinner on the inhabited island of somewhere I can’t remember where”. The thing that really gets me is that my friend and his wife never went on that honeymoon. They had it scheduled for the following year, and by the time it came around, they were already getting divorced.

I didn’t get my money back.

If I tell friends that I am not planning to buy another friend a wedding present for her second wedding (I did for the first), they are outraged. “But the couple are spending so much money on having a lovely day and the dinner and the food, you have to get a gift that sort of represents that,” they say to me.

I am very honoured to have been invited to my friend’s wedding, but to enjoy her expensive day I am also having to fork out £150 on accommodation because it’s in a location I can’t get to easily in one day, £110 on train tickets, and two days of my precious 20-day annual leave because the wedding is on a bloody Wednesday (so that the venue was cheaper).

I’m sure that it’s going to be a lovely day, but equally, I could have had a lovely dinner with them on a weekend and I will spend more time talking to them and enjoying their company than I will at their wedding.

It is true that I could have chosen not to go. I was invited and I accepted. I am actually looking forward to their day and celebrating their love. But I am not contributing to their honeymoon. Both my friend and hubby to be have good jobs and a nice house and have more money between them than I do. As I am not planning to get married and equally not planning to ask anyone for a contribution to my next holiday, or to help me buy plates for my new house, there will be no “quid pro quo”.

It’s lovely that people want to get married and want to have a nice day, but I would like to be able to enjoy that without being expected to make a contribution to it. As it happens, the couple in question have not requested a present. They have written on the invitation that a present isn’t necessary, and I do not feel pressure from them to buy one (although they have included the honeymoon option for those who want to contribute). It’s my other friends who are contributing to the honeymoon who think my behaviour is very cold and calculating.

I actually do like giving gifts, and if I were to get married and people wanted to give a gift, I would ask for a copy of their favourite book, or perhaps their favourite photo of us framed. It’s more the expectation with weddings that a gift forms part of the exchange that I object to.

Am I in the wrong for not wanting to contribute to someone else’s holiday?

Interestingly enough, this article is the inspiration for my next one, “Why am I such a stingy git?”

https://medium.com/hello-love/a-friend-had-an-affair-with-a-married-man-should-i-have-told-his-wife-b04b802e3498

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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