Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Think Before You Give!

I'm back! Thanks for all your sweet comments and the such! (Kelli, it was wonderful to have you guys here! I wish we could have spent more time.)

We had a fabulous wedding day. Everything went perfectly and we had a blast. The honeymoon was sort of a series of disasters, but we ended up laughing about the whole thing and having fun anyway. It's a long, ridiculous story, and I feel in order to do justice to that story I'll be posting it in a series. That series will be titled (what else?): "The Honeymooners". You can check back every day for new episodes. Also, since we have a digital camera now, I'll try to post pictures as soon as Stephen and I figure out how to hook the camera up to the laptop.

Couples typically register for gifts somewhere; we did Bed Bath & Beyond and Target. Pretty standard. There are unwritten rules concerning this practice and I now see it's is my duty to inform the public at large of these rules.

If you are invited to a wedding, you usually fall into 2 different groups: General Admission and Special Privileges. If you are immediate family or close friends that are in regular contact (at least once a week-ie, you know them well) with the bride and/or groom, you can count yourself in the Special Privileges group. If you are anyone else, you are General Admission. Don't take this personally. G.A. just means it's customary for you to give the couple a gift they registered for, or money. You know that part of the invitation advising where the couple is registered? It's not so much a suggestion as it is a polite way of saying "Please don't buy us some random thing you thought we might like even though you the last time we talked was at the Christmas party 2 years ago." If you're in the S.P. group, feel free to use your intimate knowledge of the bride and/or groom to get something meaningful or useful, even if they didn't register for it.

Stephen's aunt (God bless the woman, she really is a cool lady and I can't wait to meet her) gave us something we definitely didn't register for. It reminds me a little of book reports and science projects I did in junior high. You know, you get the posterboard display that folds open and stands up, and you put graphs and pictures and whatever on it. That's kind of what Stephen's aunt got us. It's from hallmark, and it's a stand up photo display that's called something like "Our Love Story"...um, it's hard to describe. It's a nice idea, but... super cheesy... it's NOT our style. A blender or some hand towels would have been more useful and just as sweet.

Stephen and I drink wine, thus, we registered for wine glasses, which we received along with 2 bottles of wine. Our good friend Liz gave us martini glasses and a bottle of vodka, which I thought was a clever idea that reflected something I mentioned in passing during a conversation, and since Liz has special privileges, it was cool to get stuff we didn't register for from her.

Next rule: NO regifting, period (unless you happen to have the exact item the couple registered for and you happen to not need or want said item and said item happens to be in new condition). 2 of Stephen's friends (R&M) just got married 4 months ago. We like them but never hang out. We saw R&M at their wedding and again at someone else's wedding- in other words, they are General Admission. Now, R&M got us martini glasses and a bottle of vodka. Odd. We didn't register for that. Our suspicion is that they got the glasses for their wedding and regifted us. One word, people: TACKY. Now we have 8 martini glasses, 2 bottles of vodka, and we don't drink martinis often.

Here's the next rule. A bunch of people made out checks to "Stephen and Rachel (last name)". Now, I haven't changed my name yet (I'm going to, but it takes time). The thing is, if the check says Stephen and Rachel, we BOTH have to sign for them to deposit it. If it says Stephen or Rachel, only one of us has to. The other other thing is, I can't sign them. My name is still Rachel Maiden, not Rachel Married. What if I wasn't planning on changing my name? Could we not cash those checks? So, checks made out to the married couple: cute at the time, but frickin inconvenient when we want to pay off our credit cards.

I know it's the thought that counts, blah blah blah, but we've spent more time at the bank and running around from home furnishing store to home furnishing store that we have at home with each other. Newlyweds don't want to spend their first day home together driving from Target to Target trying exchange plates. I'm just saying.

4 comments:

Thom Gabrukiewicz said...

My gift, which is on it's way, really, requires that you just sit back and relax. Glad to have you back in the blogsphere (oh, are you still in transition?)

Melissa said...

So glad you're back and can't wait to see your pictures!

I remember all those "thoughtful," gifts and thinking we'd already done the work of picking out things we wanted, people just had to go in and choose among a list. My experience at Target was the worst. I didn't have all the receipts and the Target in my town didn't carry the same items as the ones in Houston. They wouldn't take back one item, on another item I got less than it's worth, and then I got a friendly warning that I could only make one more return (I can't remember if it was for that month or year???). Anyway, it was frustrating because under normal circumstances, I don't make returns.

RachelRenae said...

SERIOUSLY! Stupid Target! Melissa, you're preachin' to the choir.

ThomG, I'm looking forward to it! (and I'm still in transition)

Beth said...

Glad your back...can't wait to hear the honeymoon stories...it's good to know the register list rules, "registering" here is a preatty new thing but my sister-in-law is doing it for her wedding!