Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Wedding Gifts

I can't tell if it's tacky to talk about this so obviously I'm going to err on the side of being tacky and talk about it because if I'm anything, it's obliviously tacky.

The wedding gift process is a very uncomfortable and confusing thing.

I long ago accepted that we've all just decided it's normal and I've tried very hard not to read too much into it, but every time I get a wedding announcement for my teenager cousins who are marrying BYU next week and it includes directions to their "registry," I always implicitly feel like this is a little weird. Then I judge them for where they chose to register. Then I think about how I'm going to show up to the wedding a little drunk, overturn the cake table, and scream "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME." Then I go onto the registry and buy something because I'm a phenomenally good person who long ago accepted that we've all just decided this is normal.

And look. This is not a personal attack on any of you. I very much know that I'm the weird one here. This really should not be an uncomfortable and confusing thing. People get married. We give them gifts to congratulate them and thank them for inviting us to a very expensive party. They know we are going to give them gifts so they might as well tell us what gifts to get so they don't end up with 9 toasters. This is efficient.

I understand that.

You're not the problem.

I'm the problem.

But I just can't get over this.

So when I got engayged last year and we started planning our wedding [crosses self four times], Skylar was like, "should we make a registry to include on our wedding announcements?" and I almost implicitly screamed "WE AREN'T 14-YEAR-OLD BETROTHEDS WHO ARE BEING JOINED TOGETHER TO COMBINE OUR FAMILIES' LANDS."

It just felt extra weird that we would have a registry. More weird than my teenager cousins. Because I'm a 30-mumble-mumble-year-old man and I don't need someone to buy me a toaster. And the implication of creating a registry to send to people, I told Skylar, is that I think someone should be buying me a toaster at this point in my life.

It felt wrong and weird and it made me uncomfortable.

Skylar, who has very much learned to choose his battles with my insane anxieties and opinions, shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject.

Months went by. We sent out some invitations to a few people for our small wedding. We informed some people of a reception later in the evening. We included no information about any kind of registry.

We started getting messages and phone calls from people asking us about this.

"Where are you registered?'

"Where can I find your registry?

"What stores did you choose to REGISTER IN?"

"REGISSSSSSSTRYYYYYYY"

We gave people this whole "your friendship is the only gift we need" barfy speech but literally every person was like "BUT WHAT ABOUT STUFF."

Our friends told us that our humble quest at selflessness was actually not charming and that not having some kind of a registry was actually more of an inconvenience for everyone because since they were "obviously" going to send us a gift anyway, the lack of registry made the gift-hunting process more difficult.

We heard this enough times that Skylar finally decided to just go ahead and make a registry a couple of different places. "We won't send it out to people. We'll just give it to them if they ask," he assured me.

The next thing I knew, gifts started arriving at our house every day or two. Registry gifts.

Since I participated not at all in the registry creation, these were a surprise to me. Plus, they told me a little bit about Skylar's priorities. For example, I learned that he's very interested in some contraption that makes soda water and another contraption I have just learned is called a "sous vide."


Look. I am 100% uncomfortable with this thing. I think it might be witchcraft. I'm pretty sure I already committed Sin just by writing the words "sous vide." They just started preparing my room in Evangelical Hell. A room with extra fire, obviously, because flaming homo.

What it is is this thing you place in a pot of water and it gets the water to an exact temperature. Then you put a bag of food in the water and eventually it gets the bag of food to that exact temperature and you can leave it in there until The Rapture (in which I shall not be taken see supra) and the food will still be at that exact temperature, which temperature is the perfect temperature for whatever food you are cooking.

There's this whole chart for it. Chicken needs to be 150 degrees in order to be perfectly cooked, for example, so if you set the sous vide to 150 degrees and place a bag of chicken in the water, after an hour the bag of chicken will also be 150 degrees so it's perfect and now you're all going to hell with me because you are still reading about this. See you there. Let's pencil in a game of Mafia and then go to IKEA.

Skylar thinks this may actually be the thing that solves world peace. He LOVES the frigging sous vide. He has already made the sous vide the sole beneficiary in his will. He is currently considering leaving me at the altar for the sous vide.

I can't blame him. The bitch is thin and shiny.

Once the sous vide showed up I decided I should probably take a look at the registry and make some adjustments. If my friends and family were looking at this thing, it should probably reflect something about my priorities as well. I didn't want my people to think I had accepted witchcraft into my life.

So I logged into the account Skylar created, glanced through the unrecognizable assortment of shiny things he had already selected, made my way to the appliances, and clicked on a really nice toaster.

~It Just Gets Stranger

31 comments:

  1. I had friends who got married well after they were established adults and they asked that in lieu of gifts people make charitable donations to a select group of charities they supported. It was lovely to have a tax write-off as result of my gift to them.

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    1. One of my friends had like a way to contribute to different types of trips of events the couple wanted to do together, which I happily contributed my cheap portion to. The charities sound like a really cool idea, although it might make everyone else feel bad that they aren't/weren't that selfless at their wedding party.

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    2. Didn’t make me feel bad at all. I gladly admit I invited people to my wedding I knew would not come because they would still send gifts! I’m completely materialistic and selfish!

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    3. Oh! And I should add that I only give physical gifts at wedding showers. For the wedding I give cash - because that was honestly our favorite gift and covered all the spending we did on our honeymoon

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  2. When I got married, I set up a honeymoon registry, because TEACHERS, but people reeeeaaalllyyyyyy want to give you stuff. They think stuff is better than memories. People are weird.

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  3. When I got married, my partner and I had already been living in sin for a couple of years and had had to downsize our household goods. So we asked for people to chip in for our honeymoon and then went to New Zealand for three weeks where we visited the Shire and climbed Mt. Doom.

    We did have a small registry for the people who felt the need to get us a physical gift. It was basically just a fancy blender and a set of sheets.

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  4. We love our sous vide! I'm the wife who generally does all the cooking (because I actually enjoy it) but my husband does ALL the sous vide-ing (because he loves it so, so much). I don't understand it either, but amazing. Also, even though I KNOW my food is going to taste amazing and is safe and all, I have to grill or kitchen torch or whatever my meat so it doesn't look quite so anemic. That said, yum. All the yums. I'm so very happy for Skylar to have a thin and shiny magical toy. :D

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  5. I didn't register anywhere. We got exactly 0 toasters. We did however get 3 blankets from Old Navy, and 2 fondue sets, and 4 blooming onion kits.

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  6. I totally understand you. I was 42 when I got married, and living in sin, but by golly the world needed a registry. So I have a waffle iron I've used maybe 5 times in 10 years. But I got some nice towels, and a divorce, so I guess it was worth it in the end. I like the charity registry idea.

    I don't guess we're allowed to know where you're registered, hint hint? Maybe an Amazon registry for us good-hearted Strangers? Don't forget to include something for Casper.

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  7. I think you are 100% right about the idea of wedding gifts Eli, but I also don't like rocking the boat too much. Therefore, I've tried to put in some thought for the couple. if I really don't know them, then I've given them a large candle. If they're more than acquaintances, I'll usually either give them a gift card to use on a date or the money route because lazy.

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  8. You are a National Treasure!! I have declared it so

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  9. 2 things. I had no idea how expensive pots, pans, and knives were until I perused your registry. Secondly, I think it’s adorable that you’re honeymooning in Palau. Congratulations!

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  10. I also got married at 30...something and had been living on my own for quite a while. Because my mother decided to invite every person she had ever met, we decided to register so that we wouldn't end up with duplicate items. I registered for things to replace the crap I had gotten when I couldn't afford the nice things. Somehow We did end up with over 10 sets of Pyrex bowls that we didn't register for.
    There is no winning with whatever you decide to do. I will say it is fun to open gifts that are mailed to you every couple days. ;)

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  11. I assume your registry is at snuggie.com. That is your favorite gift to give others. Either that or wooden letters; maybe E & I? Or do you already have those?

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  12. Gotta admit I was kind of bummed that someone beat me to the toaster on your registry. There's something really satisfying about giving the most time honored wedding gift. Guess mine will just have to be something else that's shiny.

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  13. My now ex-husbands family all got married over the space of 2 years a long time ago so that we were going to a fancy wedding every second weekend for two summers in a row. I was at the time a very poor single parent student. The married couples were all much better off financially than I was but the tradition in that family is to give money. It was horrible. Then I didn't go to any weddings for a very long time but have been to a couple in the last few years and I give everyone the same gift in a different colour (you can see it here https://glugglejugs.co.uk/) It's just weird enough to be okay. However my niece just got married at the beginning of this summer and I had already given her the glug jug as a birthday gift one year because we thought she would never get married AND her husband to be also had one of his own that he used as part of an art installation he had done (they are both artists). They are also both minimalists and live in a sort of serene mostly empty apartment and didn't want a bunch of stuff so they registered for some sort of trip thing at this place (https://www.giftspaces.ca/). I "bought" them something from their list of honeymoon activities. It was kind of neat and I think for couples who aren't teenagers setting up house for the first time, it's probably a better way to spend.

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    1. Reading over this now I realize that it is basically one really long sentence with several spelling mistakes and all I can say is "sorry about that!"

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  14. Registries for the “teen brides” is boring crap that everyone needs to establish home. Boring. When my 30yr old nephew got married, he already had an established home with all the practical stuff so he registered for all kinds of really cool things that I totally would love to have. Copper garlic press, charcuterie board, a wok, cool camping gear I didn’t know I NEEDED. This was not just a wedding registry but is also now my amazon wish list.

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  15. Miss Manners says wedding gifts are entirely optional, so, on the strength of that authority, I have given very few wedding gifts in the past several years. Which is nice, because I was getting really tired of buying other people nicer things than I myself own to celebrate the fact that they'll never talk to me again now that they're no longer perpetually single like me.

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  16. ‘Altar’ not ‘alter’. Fourth paragraph from the bottom.

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  17. Just found this site from a link someone shared on Twitter and spent nearly 3 hours reading. I feel like I just stumbled upon a trove of comedy gold and I am so excited to follow along. You have a unique writing voice and sense of humor and it seems like you have created a really fun community through it.

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    1. Welcome to the clubs Ryan! I would say come on in and stay awhile, but it seems you’ve already figured that part out!!

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  18. Sooooo the sous vida is just a baby bottle warmer, only for solids for us adults?? Nice to know you could warm enough bottles for octomom.

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  19. I’m still super confused by the sous vida! You don’t cook the food at all before you put it in the baggie? How long does it generally take? I don’t like the idea of heating stuff up in a plastic bag. Doesn’t that plastic just leach into your food?? Someone please answer all this for me. It almost sounds like a super confusing instant pot.

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    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide

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  20. Got married twice. Didn’t register either time. Got a lot of money, which was nice. Also got some really beautiful and useful gifts that I love. I will never regret not registering.

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  21. You realize we're all getting you wood blocks with letters on them so you can spell things like "faith" and also classy cat snuggies with your initials monogrammed in gold glitter ✨?

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  22. I know I'm super late to the comments here, but I have to tell this story because it still drives me crazy. We registered (like you, I didn't really love doing it, but didn't know what else to do), but my mom INSISTED that nothing was tackier than including where you'd registered in your invitations. She explained that if people really wanted to know where we'd registered, they could ask and we would tell them. So I followed her instructions. And people DID ask her where I'd registered! And she promptly told them, "I don't remember. I don't think she did!"

    How many presents did I miss out on because of that?!?!?!

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