The Wedding Gift

[Lawdog Dago Dom]

We attended a wedding recently. At the reception, while the younger set danced, a group of us retired folks pulled chairs together and chatted. One topic (since we were all there) were wedding gifts and "thank you" cards. We lamented that the genuine, handwritten thank you seems to have gone the way of the 5-cent beer.

 

Some recalled weddings where no thank you at all was received, others got text messages. Some got an email from the bridal registry when a gift was purchased.

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One couple had an interesting gift giving strategy. They would give $100 cash. If they got an old school, genuine thank you, they would gift a second $100 on the couple's first anniversary. Anything else the second gift didn't happen.

 

The group kinda liked that strategy.

 

There are some flaws in it, but it was good conversation for the drive home.

 

 

[Eyesa Horg]

We haven't received a Thank you of any sort from the last few weddings we sent gifts to. Ellie tries to get a paper note out within a day or so for such things.

[Rip Snorter]

A new friendly acquaintance had 3 of, I think 5 kids get married in sequence.  Distance and new friend status, thank you but we can't come. #1, check for a hundred, no thank you note.  #2 invitation, sorry.  #3, did not respond.  On one occasion, they have stayed & been fed & entertained on the ranch.  Nice folks, but I guess times have changed courtesy wise.

[Cypress Sun]

I saw the last couple that I gave a wedding gift (card w/$100 cash) didn't bother to send out any form of thank you notes. I saw them at someone else's part about a year later. They came over and were talking with me, and some others, when I asked them if they had received the card/cash. He said they had received it. I said I didn't know if they had received it or not as there was no thank you note of any kind. He said "I'm sorry, we didn't send out any thank you cards." I replied, "Well, maybe you will after your next wedding" and walked away.

[J-BAR #18287]

My wife and I tend to be generous with wedding gifts.  For those ceremonies hundreds of miles away that we don't really want to attend, we consider the cost of gas, meals, and lodging and add some of that to the gift/gifts we send.  We still use a few of the gifts we received at our own wedding... steak knives, serving platter, etc...so gift selection is an important consideration.  Marriage is hard;  the gift should be sincere.

 

Second marriages, not so much.

[watab kid]

ive attended tw in the recent years a nephew and a niece , both sent thankyous , my wife attended one of her nephews and got none , we will be attending two more this year , a nephew and a niece we shall see how that goes , wife has complained of a couple grandkids not thanking for christmas gifts the last few years , 

[Eyesa Horg]

Our nephew's family never sends any sort of thank you at Xmas either. Family of five!! Gets expensive every year for three kids and we have to call to see if they received the package!!

[Rye Miles #13621]

I couldn’t care less if I got a thank you note. Just MHO

[Capt. R. Hugh Kidnme]

Of the weddings (Millenials and Gen Z'ers) we've attended in the last 5-7 years, we've yet failed to receive a hand written Thank You for our gift. 

 

That also includes "new baby" gifts to the same target population. Our friends must all have raised their kids up right.

[Texas Joker]

$100 is about a tank of gas these days. Not even a weeks groceries.

 

Kinda like that lady down the street that wants to give kids a dollar for shoveling her drive then can't understand why no one wants to do it.

[Cypress Sun]

2 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

$100 is about a tank of gas these days. Not even a weeks groceries.

 

Kinda like that lady down the street that wants to give kids a dollar for shoveling her drive then can't understand why no one wants to do it.

 

So, a gift of $100, or less, is not worthy of a Thank You?

 

Just curious, what's the minimum on the Thank You threshold?

 

 

[Cypress Sun]

3 hours ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

I couldn’t care less if I got a thank you note. Just MHO

 

Me either...but a simple text or acknowledgment that they received the gift is nice to know.

Hell, I say thank you to the person that holds the door open for me. It kind of irks me when I do the same for a person that walks by you and never says a word. Not acknowledging a gift shows the same kind of ambivalence and disrespect imo. 

[Pat Riot]

All I care about is if they liked the gift. Any form of acknowledgment is fine. 
We always get a phone call thanking us for gifts, well, my wife does. 
The only time I have ever gotten truly put off by no acknowledgement or thank you was at a friend’s daughter’s wedding and we bought an expensive gift for them from the registry at Buffum’s and we got no response at all. 
She got a divorce 2 years later. I heard she had a yard sale and sold everything they got in the wedding reception. She remarried a year after that. We sent nothing. 
We heard she was upset that we didn’t fly or drive 12 hours to the wedding and we didn’t send a gift. I told her Dad to just have her go pick out something nice at a yard sale somewhere and we’ll reimburse her. We never heard about it again. 

[Texas Joker]

1 hour ago, Cypress Sun said:

 

So, a gift of $100, or less, is not worthy of a Thank You?

 

Just curious, what's the minimum on the Thank You threshold?

 

 

Oh don't get Me wrong common courtesy still calls for a 'thank you' but a quick text or phone call covers that.  

 

If I topped off your tank or picked up dinner you'd say thanks.

 

But being invited to a wedding and served dinner, drinks and entertainment. The hundred might offset that cost. Then they have to get stationary and buy stamps and actually find time to write a thank you...

 

Wedding gifts are to help set the new couple up in their new life together. 

 

And unfortunately $100 does not go as far as it used to.

 

They say sixty is the new Forty, well the $100 is the new $20.

[Cypress Sun]

18 minutes ago, Texas Joker said:

Oh don't get Me wrong common courtesy still calls for a 'thank you' but a quick text or phone call covers that.  

 

If I topped off your tank or picked up dinner you'd say thanks.

 

But being invited to a wedding and served dinner, drinks and entertainment. The hundred might offset that cost. Then they have to get stationary and buy stamps and actually find time to write a thank you...

 

Wedding gifts are to help set the new couple up in their new life together. 

 

And unfortunately $100 does not go as far as it used to.

 

They say sixty is the new Forty, well the $100 is the new $20.

 

Rarely does a couple "have a new life together" these days. Each and every "first time" wedding that I've been to in the last 20 years, the couple has lived with each other for some time before getting married. It's not a new life together but more of a legally committed life together.

 

As far as being invited to the wedding and the amenities that may be provided, if they can't afford the extra's....don't provide them. Have a private reception or whatever is affordable. If they consider my "gift" as payment for the wedding/reception/etc...how does that absolve them from acknowledgement someone's "contribution" to the wedding/etc? Is the no longer a gift that's now a "contribution", less worthy of thanks? I don't think so. It's called courtesy, respect and a certain amount of gratitude with a simple (supposedly) heartfelt gesture.

 

You're right, $100 doesn't go a long way for me these days, yet is increasingly hard to come by. Maybe times have passed me by, I remember when a $100 paycheck for the week meant that I had worked 40 hours + overtime in a ***t job just to make. 

 

Tell ya what TJ, send me $100...the new $20. I'll thank you profusely right here or by other means....and it'll be appreciated....from the heart.

[Eyesa Horg]

I love the invitations that expect you spend thousands to go to the wedding in a far away land and still provide gifts!!! Not gonna happen in this household!!

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I stopped sending my grandson anything when he never acknowledged receiving them.

 

Last year he complained to my son and DIL about not even getting a card from me.  My DIL (I love that lady)quietly asked him if he'd ever so much as let me know that he had received anything.

 

This year I got a Christmas card and a birthday card from him.  If he keeps it up until next year I'll send him a card.

 

It will take a lot longer than that get mentioned in my will again.