I’ve not been to a wedding in years but of the many I have gone to back then, one ALWAYS took the gift to the wedding reception and most often the couple opened the gifts right there and even read a few of the cards. These ranged from very formal weddings to very casual weddings.
Now I am reading up on guest etiquette and most of the sites say to ship it to the bride’s family or to the couple prior if they are living together. We don’t have a clue of either of their addresses and the wedding is at the groom’s father’s home.
I am not THAT old! Have things changed so much? It hasn’t been THAT long since I have been to a wedding and then it was unthinkable to show up without a gift unless it was a destination wedding when you obviously would not fly with your gift!
What is up with this seemingly new rule? If we don’t take the gift, we are not driving a couple of hours to take it at some point before or after the wedding. The wedding is this Sat. What do you suggest?
Most of the etiquette sites say it is because it’s a PAIN for the couple to have to LUG the gifts home. How ungrateful can they be??? It is a 6 pm wedding and they are not even serving anything but snacks at reception, so we have to try and eat before we leave home at 4 pm for the two hour drive to the wedding location and then hope we don’t starve by midnight when the thing wraps up. Is that new too- to not feed your wedding and reception guests a simple meal if only sandwich platters- something besides nuts and mints??
Also, those same sites say it is okay to wear black to a casual evening wedding but TONS of brides commented that they thought black was for funerals? I just wanted my guests to look nice!
And the bride and groom think THEY have stress before the wedding! It seems to be as tough to be a guest these days as dressing nice and providing a generous gift have too many additional strings attached it seems. LOL
ok one thing at a time.
1- the gift. I still bring gifts to the reception. Shipping is expensive! if however, the couple lives in a different city than the wedding (they have to take a flight or train to get there) i would suggest sending the gift as it IS difficult to pack all those gifts and its not really fair that they should have to ship all those gifts back home when you could have done that for them. but i think if you want to bring a gift to the reception that’s totally acceptable!
2- food at the wedding. while i think that is a little tacky, budgets are tight with the economy. people compromise on their guests comfort to ensure they stay within their budget AND have all the extra bells and whistles.
3- black. black is just fine for an evening wedding. hello little black dress? it just depends on the style.
Bring the gift with you to the reception, to ship the gift is only if you are not planning on attending the reception, yeah its easier to ship but well you “personally” gave it to them not some mail man….
And they probably had a small budget to work with as most weddings are now paid for by the bride and groom, and some times family helps…
Black is for funerals for me because I’m 23 yrs old and been to 15 + funerals and 2 weddings, so when there is a wedding in my family everyone shares in the bright colors and happiness 10x as much as any other family (not saying any ones family doesnt enjoy themselves just that are family is less formal- any one can wear white as everyone knows there is the bride, but our family NEEDS the happy, too much sad)
But black tux for a formal affair? not inappropriate at all.
Sorry about the food thing one thing I’m making sure of is a quick ceremony, alot of food and a hell of a party!
With so much of strings attached to a wedding ceremony the personal touch of invitation is lost.
Oh, I am totally with you on this! I dont know who and when this rule was made… but I dont like it.
If someone wants to send it the brides or grooms home, great. But if they bring it to the wedding, thats fine too. And there are no exceptions for destination weddings or those living far away. I live abroad and managed to ship our gifts to our home– yes, at a great expense but isnt that my responsibility as the Receiver of the gift? I did not complain, nor did I “suggest” that guests send the gift to our home (a great cost to our guests) or worse, suggest that they give us money because it fits easily in a suitcase!
I considered that shipping cost (a couple hundred US dollars) to be a “miscellaneous/unexpected wedding cost” and Im sorry but if you cant factor that into your wedding budget, then maybe you should have your wedding AT your house.
Evening receptions without food are terrible. If you want to serve cake, great– just do it at 3pm when people arent thinking about dinner. If you want an evening wedding, you MUST serve dinner and I dont care if your reception starts at 8pm. Grandma may go for the early bird special at 4pm, but the rest of us will be getting showered and driving to your wedding and thus have not eaten dinner before.
You obviously dont spend much time on here or you would know that rude behaviors like this are becoming all too common. Just browse around… youll be shocked.
First of all, a nice black dress is perfectly acceptable these days- every woman should have one. I have been to a few weddings this summer, and plenty of women were wearing a black cocktail dress.
Also, I think it’s a little bratty and selfish to make rules for your guests about how they should go about giving you gifts. Um, do you want a gift or not? Forget about this so-called rule of etiquette. I suggest bringing the gift to the wedding- TRUST ME- you will not be the only one to do so. Lugging the gifts from the wedding to the couple’s house (or wherever) is the job of the bridesmaids, not the bride and groom.
I would say it’s a little old-fashioned to open the gifts at the wedding. After all, having a bunch of gifts to open leaves something for the couple to look forward to after the honeymoon is over.
As far as food goes… I can completely understand where you are coming from. After you pay for a new outfit, a gift and travel expenses, at the very least, you kind of expect a meal! However, I think a lot of people have forgotten that the point of a wedding is to witness a very special event in a friend/ relative’s life, and to basically show up to give your support and congratulations. The reception is a way of thanking people for coming and continuing the celebration. Some people just can’t afford to feed everyone, but they still want to have some sort of party, however small.
On that note, I think it’s a really bad idea to hold a reception during dinner time and not have a meal- Hello! People are going to be hungry and end up leaving early. Just having snacks is totally fine- Just have the wedding earlier in that case (like about two in the afternoon)!
It has been the rule for at least 75 years to send the gift to the bride’s home before the wedding.
Some areas had a local custom of taking the gifts to the wedding.
When people who have way too much time on their hands started making up their own rules and claiming that everyone and their cousin does that same thing even though it has no basis in fact at all and that if you don’t agree, then you basically belong in the nuthouse. That applies to every wedding-related aspect.
Just because everyone else might tell you that no one anywhere gives tangible gifts and that registries are utterly pointless, etc and that people only give cash gifts does not make it so for everyone. There are still countless people who always bring a gift to a reception, always check registries, and never give cash. Never assume anything.
I’ve been to a ton of weddings and every single one had a gift table at the reception that was full and cash was/is unheard of in those social circles, which also happen to include some very well-to-do prim and proper folks who do know proper etiquette which is a lost art. But yet the masses at Y!A and any other wedding site will tell you that you are completely dreaming that up that anyone does such a thing.
It’s actually a better question to ask when bringing presents to a reception became *acceptable*. The earliest etiquette books to mention the problem date from the late nineteenth century; earlier etiquette books don’t mention wedding gifts at all. Social histories indicate that the giving of wedding gifts was a much smaller issue in earlier centuries, with the majority of guests not giving a gift. All those etiquette books, from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first, point out that correct form is to send the gift to the bride’s home before the wedding. If you buy from a reputable department store, they will have it delivered for you.
The custom of setting up a gift table is a modern trend (“modern” meaning “in the last thirty or forty years”, not “in the last 18 months” — I know that the Y!A crowd include people who think of forty years as being ancient history). Bringing gifts to the reception is actual far more viable nowadays when couples are already living together, and therefore have an established home that they return to following their reception instead of leaving directly on their honeymoon. It’s still an inconvenience for whomever has to lug them back to the couple’s home, but with modern society including so many people who are unaware of old rules of etiquette, it is an inconvenience that wedding organizers have learned to plan for — hence the ubiquitous gift table.
It’s also new to serve full dinners to everyone, although historically that had more local variation due to the very reason you cite — that in rural regions people had to come farther to attend a wedding and hence needed the sustenance. The untraditional thing in the wedding you describe is that it starts so late — traditionally weddings were always held before noon do to church and civic regulations.
The rule about dress is that one does not wear *mourning* to a wedding. There’s a difference between mourning, and a little black dress. That rule change dates back to Coco Chanel in 1926. Nowadays people do not wear mourning — gracious, nowadays people don’t even mourn: they continue planning parties and fancy celebrations with their own father lying still unburied! — so most people don’t understand how to tell the difference between the two. But trust me: a trim stylish dress with decolletage and coloured accessories is not funereal.
Some etiquette books just cater to the hoity-toity….
Nothing wrong with taking the gift to the reception – we do it always, and so do others.
As for food, it’s terrible that they not serve a meal for their guests.
Where I’m from, no women would wear black to a wedding, sometimes men wear black suits.
it’s not unacceptable to bring a gift to a wedding, but it’s a pain in the @$$ for the bride and groom to have to pack it up at the end of the night when they’d rather be messing around in the honeymoon suite. most people bring cards with cash, checks or gift cards to weddings. that way the bride and groom can open the cards the next day, grab the cash and take it on their honeymoon. also it’s just easier than lugging some big gift into a reception hall and trying to find the gift table. but I’ve never been to a wedding where gifts were opened in front of guests, that’s what happens at the shower. it’s bad enough the female guests have to sit through that crap at the shower, if I had to watch people open gifts at a wedding I’d leave. SO boring! if they send me a thank you card that’s good enough for me, I don’t need to see them open the gift.
obviously if you’re close enough to be invited to a wedding, you’re close enough to have their phone number to call and ask the bride and groom or their parents for their address to ship their gift! duh!
Exactly.I have notice that also.I still would take the gift to the reception.It was always done that way and should be kept that way.Shipping is expensive.
The shipping of the gift thing is an old tradition. The woman would receive the gift (usually still at her parents house) and then display them for all to see before the wedding. Of course that was when everyone lived near each other.
More recently, shipping became poplular because when shopping off a registry, you could have the store ship it (and maybe even wrap it too) so that YOU didn’t have to bother with wrapping it and bringing it along.
These days, however, I gotta believe that 90% of wedding gifts are cash. Those just go in a card givven to the bride and groom. So it’s really a moot point for most people.
However, I would not hesitate to bring a wrapped gift to the reception – no couple is so ungrateful that they’d ever think twice about it.
i’m 28 and i gotta tell you when i was a kid and up till about age 24 i got invited to a wedding and we took the gift, but then i don’t know it changed some how, i still take the gift to the wedding reception, even if i only give it to their parents before i leave,
i have been to a lot of weddings where the guests are wearing black, i see no problem with it, and yes the no dinners at receptions is because of the economy, sad huh. good luck, have fun.