Weddings are about guests not the gift list
IDo love a wedding. The dresses, the fizz, the speeches, there is something rather lovely about a group of people gathering together to celebrate the love of two individuals.
Even though there must inevitably be at least one woman who takes off her shoes on the dancefloor in the middle of 500 Miles by The Proclaimers, falls into an undignified heap after sliding on her stockinged soles and ends up being shepherded off to the ladies’ loos by the confused father of the groom, they are generally pretty enjoyable events. That is, apart from the gift-giving.
once upon a time, wedding lists were simple if faintly archaic documents, featuring as they did such outmoded items as gravy boats, fish slices and wine glasses. Today, though, it’s a social (not to mention economic, depending on your budget) minefield. Brides and grooms now are apparently likely to demand what are being described as ‘statement gifts’, with the focus very much on big ticket items such as outdoor pizza ovens, wine-cooling cabinets and drones.
An outdoor pizza oven? In Scotland? You’d get more use out of an outdoor freezer. As for a wine-cooling cabinet, I don’t know about you but I’ve already got one of those. It’s called a fridge.
The thing is, we all know there’s a certain social contract involved in a wedding, and it’s going to involve a fair bit of money, an awful lot of smiling and at least one visit to John Lewis’s millinery department.
Weddings are expensive – £432 is the eye-watering average cost to attend one these days, according to a recent survey – but they’re also special, and lovely, and the chances are you’re splashing out because others did the same for you on your wedding day, or you’re hoping they might do if you ever get round to it yourself.
But still. A drone? When did that become a fundamental necessity of newlywed married life? The majority of couples whose weddings I have attended in recent years have requested money as a gift, usually for a honeymoon, or vouchers from a department store. There is something refreshingly honest about this, even if it does rather puncture the romance.
THEN there are the wacky gift options – for the more cerebral brides and grooms there is the Amazon wedding list, stacked full of books, DVDs and digital music – while in the US (obviously) Domino’s Pizza has launched its own wedding registry, for those who simply can’t bear the idea of cooking up their own pizza, indoors or outdoors.
The worry, of course, is that you get it wrong. one shivers at the dread thought of being a guest at the Middleton-Matthews nuptials today, where one imagines the couple already own a fleet of wine-cooling cabinets, probably monitored by several drones.
Ultimately, the only gift that should really matter at a wedding is your presence. And I can’t help but think that any couple getting too bogged down in choosing the right ‘statement’ gifts has forgotten just why they’re getting married in the first place.