Don’t make these wedding list mistakes
One thing Meghan and Harry won’t be doing this week is unpacking presents from their wedding list. They have asked the majority of guests to donate to a charity, and a smaller group of friends to choose something from a range of items at Soho House. This is a wise move.
They will not have cupboards rammed with unused Le Creuset, or plates that aren’t dishwasher-safe – even if they fitted in the dishwasher, which they don’t, being extravagantly large because they were chosen for The Wedding List. Not for them the picnic basket, the fish kettle, the wine coolers, the cachepots (whatever happened to them?) or the hanging basket chair that seemed fun even though you had nowhere for it.
No doubt Meghan and Harry will regret some of the decisions they make leading up to the big day. To make some wild guesses: her choice of shoes; leaving too early/ late; letting Jacko DJ for half an hour; the doves (here’s really hoping there aren’t doves); and the song composed especially by the groom (again, fingers crossed). But at least they won’t suffer from wedding list blues and the knowledge they were gripped with a pre-nuptial brain fever, and encouraged to go shopping with friends’ and family’s hard-earned cash.
Thinking about it, a wedding list is a very dangerous thing. What you really should have is a John Lewis marriage starter pack – the equivalent of those sets of saucepans and sheets they do for first year university students – and then vouchers, which you could cash in, as and when you realised that what you really needed was a cork bathmat and some ice trays. Not a glass cake stand with a dome lid; not a set of hand-blown shot glasses; not a Philippe Starck lemon squeezer (a staple at one point in the Eighties); or a giant marble cheese board. There’s no occasion for this stuff, let alone anywhere to store it. Your wedding list might as well have got mixed up with Boris Becker’s for all the use it’s going to be.
Back in the olden days, a wedding list was sort of aspirational but none the less appropriate. You asked for a dinner service, cutlery, some nice whisky tumblers and a Sodastream, and you used all of it, all the time, and only slightly regretted getting the bird place mats rather than the ones with the botanical illustrations.
These days, it’s nothing like so simple. For a start, you have probably set up house already (even Meghan and Harry have been living together in “the cottage” for months). You’ve got the basics, so the chances are – lightheaded from wedding dress dieting, and a bit This is My One Chance – you get carried away. Next thing you know, you’ve asked for a luxury garden swing-seat, an air fryer and a faux fur Arctic fox dog basket.
This is bad on all sorts of fronts. Your guests will be irritated by your nonessential requests. They’ll feel taken advantage of, and cross that there isn’t something worthwhile and reasonably priced on the list. And you will wake up two days after the wedding and feel like Elton John during the cocaine years.
It has to be said that Meghan and Harry have not entirely escaped this weirdness. The Soho House list includes Wallpaper City Guides, for metrosexuals on a mini-break. But surely if there is one thing royalty don’t need, it is handy Tube maps and lists of spas. They may well live to regret the brass oval bar cart, too.
For the record, I’d say you can’t go wrong with: a Roberts radio; a fan for those three days when it gets swelteringly hot and all the fans have sold out; good quality sheets; and a Dyson.
Still long to have a Dyson.
‘A wedding list is a dangerous thing – suddenly you’re asked for a luxury garden swing and a faux fur Arctic Fox dog blanket’