Wedding Gift Blues : Going to the Chapel? Selecting a Present Can Be a Special Nightmare for the Giver <i> and </i> the Recipient
Last year when comedians Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold got married, they wound up as big-time losers in the traditional Wedding Gift Windfall . . . or so they claim.
On June 23, they are planning a lavish remarriage so they’ll have better memories--as well as better gifts. Instead of a judge, a rabbi will conduct the ceremony. And more friends will be invited.
“The truth is, hardly anybody gave us anything. We paid for (family members’) plane tickets and they didn’t even give us gifts. We’re like any other couple. We like gifts,” Barr says.
“This time we’re inviting friends because we figure they’ll give us wedding gifts.”
If this sort of disappointment haunts the rich and famous, you can imagine what goes down as regular folks make their way through their great--or not-so-great--nuptial hauls. Will they get what they wanted (usually money or items they registered for)? Or will the couple begin their new life, as some have, outfitted with gifts ranging from a padded toilet seat to an entire Chia Pet family?
If the bride and groom already have two homes full of housewares and furnishings, is it proper for them to indicate on the invitation that they’ve registered at Tower Records?
And in this era when brides occasionally wear black, are there any gifts still considered inappropriate for weddings?
If you are a guest in the market for a sure-to-please wedding gift, is it possible to delight both spouses? Or is the whole thing so confusing you’d rather just give up and buy the first toaster you see at K Mart?
Hot to Shop surveyed newlyweds, wedding consultants, marriage counselors, registry experts and stand-up comics who have experienced the Wedding Gift Glut firsthand.
For parties on both sides of the receiving line, they offer inside tips and guidelines for making the whole experience as joyful as it’s cracked up to be.
I KNOW THEY REGISTERED FOR IT, BUT THEY CAN’T POSSIBLY WANT THIS STUFF!--Registering for wedding gifts may seem like the ultimate ploy to extort presents from family and friends--and, basically, it is. But going to a store and submitting a list of desired household items also makes it easier for guests who are tempted to purchase his-and-her sets of The Clapper at the local drugstore.
“Some people may think that registering is tacky, that it’s the same thing as expecting a gift,” says Beverly Clark, author of “Planning a Wedding to Remember” (also in video). “But from a practical point of view it helps prevent getting duplicate gifts, and a lot of times guests are in a quandary as to what to give.”
According to wedding consultants, a registry should include gifts in a range of prices; after all, one silver teaspoon is likely to cost $50. In fact, since Modern Bride magazine claims the average price of a wedding gift is $75, etiquette experts say it’s acceptable to share the cost of one gift.
Appropriate registry items include: cookware, bed linens, dishes, silver, crystal--even sports equipment. Inappropriate are personal items such as fur coats, Armani lingerie or jewelry. Friends and family can find out about the registry by asking the bride, groom, any close friend or family member. (By the way, it’s considered hideously gauche to put a card into the wedding invitation revealing the registry site.)
Some people use the registry as a guide to choose other gifts, says Bruce Meyer, president of Geary’s in Beverly Hills. “If someone doesn’t want to choose from the registry, they can interpret what’s on the list and get something that complements it. Personal touches on gifts are always nice, too, like engraving, although those can’t be returned.”
John Loring, design director at Tiffany & Co. and author of “The Tiffany Wedding,” warns couples not to buckle under pressure from relatives or store salespeople to register for things they don’t want or need.
“Many times young people are guided into things that are too pretentious for the way they live,” he explains. “Dinner services with too much gold, crystal with platinum edging--they may not live that way, not now and not ever.”
While most people choose to register in department stores or specialty home stores such as Williams-Sonoma or Geary’s, offbeat registries are becoming more popular (and often couples register at more than one location). Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard offers a bridal registry for couples who have all the china they can handle, but may not have completed their collection of Village People CDs.
Stores specializing in one-of-a-kind items such as Los Angeles’ New Stone Age and the Craft & Folk Art Museum gift shop also offer registries. Some couples have even registered at electronics and hardware stores. And shops that don’t have formal wedding registries have been enticed to create them for especially persuasive couples.
BRIDE AND GLOOM--”The whole wedding ritual is just one giant, sanctioned, female indulgence from beginning to end. . . . There’s not a whole lot in this deal for men,” says Mimi Pond, cartoonist and author of “A Groom of One’s Own and Other Bridal Accessories.”
She’s not far from wrong. Some wedding industry observers point out that a growing number of men are accompanying their fiancees into those lairs of femininity known as the china and crystal departments. But most people who have been through the process report that grooms equate it with, say, having to share the remote control.
“Guys are never happy for another guy getting married,” explains comedian Joe Yannetty. “It’s like telling your friends you just got a job stopping F-16s with your face.”
Pond suspects such reactions can be traced to a simple source: Nearly everything about a wedding is overwhelmingly geared toward the bride, including the fact that registries don’t have automotive departments.
When she married three years ago, Pond registered for gifts by herself. “He could care less about dishes, and I think most men are like that,” she says. “There’s a rare few who want to get into a fight with you about whether to register for both high ball and martini glasses, but that’s a different breed than what I’m used to.”
“Most men would probably be OK with Batman plates or glasses from the gas station,” observes Michael Perry, author of “The Groom’s Survival Manual.” Even so, he advises disinterested grooms to support their brides with more than lip service. “And he can always take the scientific angle. What is bone china? Does it have bones in it? What is leaded crystal? What is half-leaded crystal?”
Marriage and family counselor Pat Allen reminds disheartened grooms that “silver trays and candlesticks are not female. They are gifts for the home. Everybody shares. None of the registry gifts are personal. A man could use them them in his house or a woman could use them in hers. And everything the bride exhibits in the home gives credit or discredit to the husband.”
Even so, the bottom line for most guys seems to be: just do it and get it over with.
GIMME M0-N-EY, THAT’S WHAT I WANT--You’ll be considered totally unimaginative. You will have taken the easy way out. And if you give cold, hard, cash, you are likely to delight the bride and groom as they make their way through their bonanza of gifts.
Indeed, money is the gift of choice for many couples. And they don’t hesitate to say so.
“People would ask, ‘What do you want?’ and I’d say ‘$38,’ ” recalls Yannetty of his wedding. “They’d say, ‘What do you really want?’ and I’d say ‘$38. It costs $38 a plate for the food. If you want to give us 40 bucks, fine. Me and my wife will split the profit--$1 apiece. Actually, by then it’s our $2.”
Yannetty and his bride paid for their own wedding but had to take out a loan. “You have to depend on the gifts. We couldn’t afford to do this,” he says. “A wedding reception is like taking 250 people out to dinner, so we wanted everybody to give us money. The wedding cost the equivalent of a 27-foot sportfishing boat--and my wife has the first 22 feet of that boat wrapped around her finger.”
Pond calls cash “the most sentimental gift of all--it’s sentimental because it doesn’t impose your taste on the bride and groom and it’s such a nice, green color.”
Allen, who often does prenuptial sessions for couples, says that among brides and grooms she’s worked with, most “would rather receive lots of money or gifts from the registry. . . . That’s the acquisitive part, not the intimate part of the wedding.”
Allen cautions, however, that if you’re considering giving money, the amount may be a critical factor in your decision: “In large amounts, money is usually appreciated. The problem is smaller amounts.”
Not everyone agrees. “Small amounts are fine,” says Martha Stewart, who became the nation’s unofficial Queen of Weddings with her sumptuous 1987 coffee table book “Martha Stewart’s Weddings. “I don’t think it’s tacky. You give what you can.”
And how gauche is it for a couple to request gifts of money?
It’s clearly not the sort of thing they should have engraved on their invitations. “If you do prefer money, you should let family members know and discreetly mention it to close friends,” recommends consultant Clark. “You certainly aren’t going to ask people you know less well.”
WHAT TO GIVE IF YOU’RE AN ARTISTE , A LEFT-OVER HIPPIE OR MARTHA STEWART--So you’re dead set against giving cash or something from the registry. You want your gift to stand out among the pottery, blenders and crock pots.
You’re in good company. Stewart says she never goes to the registry when she’s searching for the perfect gift.
“But they don’t expect me to,” adds the author, whose wedding book has spawned a sequel (“The Wedding Planner”). “For me, the best gifts are the ones that last forever or as close to forever as possible. My favorite gift I give to people is a very luxurious down comforter or a set of down pillows and a beautiful set of lace pillowcases.”
Not sure if what you had in mind would be as tasteful and well received as Stewart’s gifts? Here are some guidelines for fairly safe but still unusual gifts:
Clark suggests gifts that may complement the couples’ hobbies, such as tennis, croquet or gardening. She also recommends personalizing a gift by buying something from the registry and adding to it, such as filling a requested crystal bowl with chocolate truffles.
Cele Lalli of Modern Bride says couples might appreciate museum memberships, cleaning services, health club memberships or cooking or dance lessons.
But etiquette does demand that you send the gift to the address the couple has requested. Having to haul boxes from the wedding site is the last thing the newlyweds are going to want to think about. You have up to a year after the wedding to send the gift. There is no such grace period for thank-you notes; they should be mailed as soon as possible.
‘TIS BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE, AS LONG AS IT’S NOT A SNACKMASTER--Every newlywed has a tale to tell of The Worst Wedding Present Ever Received in the History of Mankind. The dancing flower. Paintings of those children with big, sad eyes. The recordings of Megadeth.
The worst wedding gifts typically fall into one of three categories: completely useless gifts, completely tasteless gifts or completely cheap gifts. Author Pond recalls a gem that scored in all three groups: “It was a 3-inch high penguin made of real fur,” she says. “We got married in my parents’ back yard in San Diego. These people must have stopped by the zoo on their way.”
Comic Rosie O’Donnell remembers the bizarre haul of gifts her father and his wife received when they married four years ago: “They got a Saladshooter. That’s really appropriate for a 60-year-old man. Dad just can’t get enough of shooting radishes all over the kitchen. He also got this electric cake decorating kit. Now you know, most people nowadays are making cakes from scratch and need the elaborate bakery icing system.
“People feel somehow compelled to shop for days to get you something that you really and truly will loathe,” says Mark Gill, vice president of publicity at Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures, who was wed a month ago.
The couple received numerous “knickknacks from hell,” and a set of “woefully inappropriate” oil paintings that the groom describes as looking like “paint-by-numbers. When you can’t return it,” he suggests, “dump it--like toxic waste.”
(Even hideous gifts can be exchanged if a store recognizes its merchandise; etiquette experts say exchanges are perfectly OK. But the return of an item shouldn’t be mentioned in the thank-you note.)
Tom Arnold reports that the worst gift he and Roseanne Barr received was from two relatives who sent “pictures of themselves dressed up as cowboy characters in nice frames.” In his stand-up act, he confesses that he wanted to get Barr “something personal so I got her a fur coat--a Velcro coat with 100 gerbils.”
But you won’t hear her complaining too much. For their second ceremony, Barr says, “we’re just hoping people will be creative, but we really like gifts. We’ll accept anything.”
The Loot
TRENDIEST GIFTS: Cappuccino /espresso machines; pizza stones; smokeless indoor grills; high-tech coffee makers; bread machines; pasta machines; ethnic cookware (woks, bamboo steamer baskets, ravioli presses, tortilla presses, paella pans); heavy-duty, restaurant-quality mixers; sports equipment.
MOST REPEATED GIFTS: Toasters; picture frames; vases; candlesticks; silver bowls; crystal bowls; sets of white linen napkins (or cocktail napkins); champagne or wine.
WORST GIFTS: Crock pots; art objects not in couple’s taste; gifts recycled from your wedding; anything that can’t be returned; tacky knickknacks; fondue sets; decorative commemorative items (e.g., a vase marking Charles and Di’s wedding); plastic lawn animals; jumper cables; toilet seats (padded or otherwise).
