No Boxed Gifts

So now that the wedding hoopla is all over, I wanted to slowly share the different things we did to make our wedding unique. Hopefully, reading the next series of posts will help guide your own planning or at least make you feel comparably sane.

Back in November I blogged about the different things I was learning while researching wedding invitation etiquette. The most controversial part about that leg of planning was the question of "no boxed gifts." Should we include that? Should we not? A lot of people, ranging from parents to friends were concerned that by not including it we would inevitably end up with multiple microwaves, and all sort of other random items.

We nonetheless chose to leave that traditional South Asian line off the wedding invitation. There were several reasons for doing this:

1) It would have looked rude to all of the non-South Asian/Arab guests.

2) We did not want to ask for gifts, which is essentially what that line does.

3) We wanted people to not feel burdened by our wedding, because while it can be easy to get somebody a great gift for even $10-15 it may not be so possible to just give that amount in cash.

4) We wanted people to be able to give us gifts from their hearts.

We did however set up two wedding registries, one at Target and another at Bed Bath & Beyond. However, there are etiquette rules about this as well.

1) Including registry inserts in wedding invitations is not proper. They can however be included with shower invitations.

2) Registry information can be given if asked about.

3) Registry information on wedding websites is allowed, so long as it is not front and center.

In case you haven't picked up on it yet, the premise for all of these rules is really only one thing: YOU CANNOT ASK FOR GIFTS.

We followed all of the rules. How did it work out?

There was a mixed bag of results. We had the traditional gift cards and cash, which were great. A lot of people bought stuff off our registry as well, so we were able to fulfill most of our household item needs. The remainder of folks went in one of two ways:

1) Non-registry items that we have no idea what to do with: think funny looking jewelry and random salad plates

2) Non-registry items that were amazing: think compost bins and cupcake stands

Would I make gift notes on my wedding invitations if I had to do it all over again? Absolutely not. It was great knowing that people could spend as much or as little money on celebrating the wedding with us as their heart desired. I would take a random swatch of fabric I may never need any day over asking guests to bring me money.