photo by Barry Gray, The Hamilton Spectator
It seems that today everybody is trying to give unique wedding gifts. But what is the proper wedding gift etiquette? Now before we talk about the wedding gift in question, here is part of an actual e-mail that guests of a wedding received from the bride, “I’m not sure if it’s the first wedding you have been to, but for your next wedding … people give envelopes. I lost out on $200 covering you and your dates plate . … and got fluffy whip and sour patch kids in return. Just a heads-up for the future.”
I’m not so sure about you but if I received an e-mail like this, it’s pretty safe to say that I probably wouldn’t be seeing the wedding couple anytime soon.
The gift in question here was a food basket that was put together for two brides getting married in Hamilton, Canada. I’ll admit that the wedding gift in this situation was, perhaps, not one of the better wedding gift ideas out there. Regardless of whether or not it was appropriate gets lost by the reaction of the bride. Simply put, she was rude!
What a Professional Has To Say about Wedding Gift Etiquette
The Toronto Star newspaper reached out to an etiquette coach to get the feedback of a professional. Her reaction to the Toronto Star was, “It’s hard to top that. The wedding is never supposed to be about the gifts. It’s a celebration of the union. You should be grateful that you got a gift and that’s the end of it. You want to preserve the feelings of the giver.”
Here is the link to the full Toronto Star article where you can read more of the back-and-forth e-mails between one of the brides and the wedding guest.
In the same article, the newspaper polled its readers for their reaction. 47% of those surveyed said that the gift was indeed quite tacky. However, when asked who they thought was correct in this situation, 89% said it was the gift giver.
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