Wedding Lists

When sending out your wedding invitations, it’s fully acceptable to enclose information for guests about how to find the wedding venue, local hotels and local taxi numbers, but some brides and grooms find it uncomfortable enclosing a wedding gift list, while others it seems write a wedding list packed full of the latest equipment for your home.

Engaged couples once used to worry about enclosing their wedding list along with the invitation. No one wanted to seem greedy or pushy. In the 80′s, couples made photocopied typed lists of the latest heated hostess trolleys, slow cookers and maybe the odd toasted sandwich maker.
Wedding lists from the 90′s asked for new microwaves and classic toasters, but today’s Mr & Mrs 2B are a little more extravagant when it comes to their wedding lists.
According to latest information from John Lewis and Debenhams, engaged couples choose to litter their list with some expensive technology. Today’s wedding lists are said to include Sony Bravia digital TV’s and top of the range mp3 sound decks to name just a couple.
Forgetting the need for saucepans, towels and a kettle, it seems the modern bride probably has these things already and really wants an upgrade on their flashy gadgets, courtesy of their wedding guests.

Tracey Yates, senior analyst at John Lewis said “Two years ago, the top 20 products on the gift list were exclusively traditional items from linens, kitchenware, china and glass, but, in the second half of last year, the Nintendo Wii sports pack made it to the top 20.”

Debenhams too agreed with John Lewis that the most requested gifts on their wedding guest lists are now iPods, widescreen plasmas, and gift vouchers. With Digital photo frames replacing the once traditional silver frames.

The tradition of wedding gifts in the UK actually stems from the father of the bride, who once gave his new son in law a gift or some money. This, along with lots of other wedding traditions, have been completely changed over the years with newlyweds enjoying plenty of new gifts for the home.
The idea of a wedding gift list, back in the day before emails, websites, and even companies like John Lewis and Debenhams offering wedding guest gift lists, was that each guest was expected to cross off what they’d buy, and forward on in the post to the next name on the list. If someone held onto it for too long, it became a bit of a pain, but it did ensure there weren’t duplicated gifts, with brides ending up with 4 or 5 toasters.

So when you’re planning your wedding gift list, consider things that will stand the test of time (like your marriage hopefully) and leave the plastic controllers or iPod speakers for your own personal purchases, you’ll only be discarding them in a couple of years anyway. After all, is there any romance in a new Sat Nav ??

Tweet This Post