I love weddings. I love boozing on my friends’ dime and it’s fun to pick out a gift to pay them back. The whole thing is joyous and swell.
And then you get the foo-foo shopping list. So the couple can forever treasure that heartfelt bathmat from Lowe’s.
Why the balls should I buy someone’s kitchen appliances and stinky candles? It’s not like the bride’s peasant family married her off in exchange for a dairy cow, and now the couple has to start their very first grown-up home.
No, your first grown-up home happens when you graduate college—when you’re swimming in debt, working a loser job, and drinking wine out of plastic soda cups from the gas station. When nobody gives you presents.
By the time you get married, you have your own useless crap. Double the useless crap, actually, since most of you started living in sin years ago.
I know this because my boyfriend and I are in the process of moving into sin.
It’s like our house is sweating and barfing useless crap. We’re running around like ER nurses, trying to clean up the latest pile of useless crap before the next carload gets all over everything. A lot of it is stuff I inherited from neighbors who got married and had their home totally refurnished by the dupes who came to the wedding. The following week, they piled their barely-used former housewares at my door. “It’ll save us another trip to Goodwill,” they said.
It’s not their fault. They’re victims of tradition, too. Some couples try to fix the situation by registering at fun stores, like REI. But they stick to price guidelines that only made sense back when each guest was contributing something a new family would actually need. Now we’re just buying luxury items. And by the time I get to the list, the cheapest thing on it is a subzero sleeping bag. What an appropriate wedding gift: a single sleeping bag. Here, couple. Enjoy your polar expedition in one sleeping bag. Like I’m really gonna get you a nicer sleeping bag than mine, anyway.
That was my last wedding registry. I don’t even look at them anymore. If I’m going to abide by the $50/$75/$100 rule, I don’t want to waste it on something that will just be thrown on a pile and never again remembered as my gift. I’d rather waste it on something I think is awesome even though the couple might hate it.
And what’s wrong with that?
The only thing I know about the stuff on the registry is that they didn’t like it enough to buy it themselves.
