As we head to present giving time I thought it was a good time to ask in this day and age how many of us are not living with our future partners already? Show of hands please, not that many at all. How many have already moved out of parental homes whether that be university, flat shares or heading to new cities alone? Most of you. So you’ll have a collection of plates and saucers, spoons and towels? Yes thought so or spaghetti hoop lunches could get messy…so why do we still create wedding lists in department stores for wedding gifts?
Most weddings I go to there is a polite sentence about having your presence as a gift but some cash or vouchers or honeymoon spending money will be fine if you insist, that’s what we did, we said B&Q vouchers to finish our house would be welcome but it’s fine if you don’t and we genuinely didn’t expect the generosity of our guests and I’ll thank them again here, “we have beautiful fitted wardrobes, our house is finished and I can’t thank you all enough”. So I’ll ask the question again, if I don’t know many couples who even ask for wedding lists, and I don’t know any couples who aren’t already shaked up together how do department stores still manage to fleece this service on couples and isn’t it a little mercenary of the couple to compile one? You might argue that vouchers and cash are mercenary but I see it as throwing out an option if people really want to bring something, but asking for a new set of hand towels or some salad servers just seems weird and rude nowadays. If I want to buy you a gift for your house it will be a house-warming and it’ll be just as good a set of salad servers from Wilkinson’s rather than John Lewis thank you very much (other salad server stockists are available). The whole tradition comes from a bottom draw, when women still lived with their parents building gifts to create a home for her husband, so how does that concept of items for the house sit in a society with same sex marriages, sex and living together before marriage and where a women isn’t just seen as a house maker? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
top hat and lace 