A heavy thump on the doormat. Oh look, another wedding invitation. (NB. Note the use of ‘invitation’, not ‘invite’. Invitation is the noun, invite the verb. Referring to it as a ‘wedding invite’ makes me come over all Lady Bracknell.)
Inside this invitation you’ll find 63 inserts, one of which will have details of the happy couple’s wedding list. ‘Your presence is our present,’ the couple may say at the top of this insert, before going on to say that they have a wedding list at John Lewis or Prezola, just in case you do want to buy them a set of Riedel glasses. Your presence, it turns out, isn’t quite good enough.
Alternatively, they may ask for a ‘contribution’ to their honeymoon. On the upside, at least this is upfront and straightforward. It saves you scrolling through their wedding list, debating whether to buy the three remaining bath towels or the rather nasty vase they’ve inexplicably asked for. Each to their own.
‘Tacky!’ huff others. And yes, I slightly agree. Openly asking people for cash towards your five-star jolly to the Maldives sticks in the craw, somewhat. But here’s a dirty little secret about wedding lists: many of them are converted into cash after the wedding anyway. So you may think you’ve bought the couple a set of Riedel glasses or a shiny new toaster, but it turns out the couple converted their whole list into cash, or vouchers, and spent it on something else instead. And I don’t reckon that’s much better than asking for a honeymoon contribution, tbh. It may even be worse. Disingenuous.
In this vein, the worst invitation I ever came across was one with a very coy paragraph asking each guest to contribute to a ‘brick’ of the couple’s new house; in other words, to help them with their deposit on their new house. Suddenly I’m feeling quite Lady Bracknell again.
Alternatively, I went to a wedding last year where the couple had a wedding list with a wine merchant. ‘To ensure that we have many happy memories with you post wedding,’ the couple said in their invitation, so I bought a case of Pinot Noir, and have drunk a bottle or two with them since. Lovely stuff. If you’re more literary, one of London’s finest bookshops, John Sandoe in Chelsea, will help you curate a wedding list of books which your guests can choose from, with bespoke bookplates in each one so you know who’s given what. I love this idea even more than I love the idea of a wine wedding list. When it comes to a wedding list, books are better than bricks.
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