By Stephen Lautens
Calgary Sun - July
5, 2013
Recently the papers and social media was abuzz with a story
about a bride in Hamilton, Ontario, who was unhappy with her wedding gift.
In case you missed it, a bride named Laura invited a guest
named Kathy to settle a dispute on Facebook whether her wedding present was
adequate. Apparently the gift basket Kathy gave to the happy couple to help
celebrate their nuptials was deemed poor compensation for inviting them to
share the blessed day.
We all get crummy gifts at our weddings. I just had my 23rd
anniversary last weekend, and the story made me think of some of the weird
gifts we received. I won’t mention any of them because I’m still related to some of the
givers, but there were times you looked in the box and wondered what were they
thinking?
In the spat between bride Laura and wedding guest Kathy, it
really came down to cash. Laura called out Kathy as the only person who didn’t give an envelope of cash and
complained in a sarcastic “thank you” note that she “lost out on $200 covering you and your date’s plate.”
That’s when the two took it to the streets of Facebook to let
the wise and wonderful public weigh in on the spat.
Personally, I’ve never seen a wedding as a money-making venture. It’s supposed to be a celebration
with those you love, but then I’m hopelessly out of touch with the way the world works.
Maybe all the bridezilla shows have ruined it. Expectations
of a lavish wedding that include a horse-drawn chariot, acrobatic elephants and
a fifteen course dinner for 500 are fuelled by TV shows where weddings have
become a competitive blood sport.
Everyone wants – no, feels entitled to – a wedding that would put a
Roman Emperor to shame. And that costs money. There are cultures where it’s a point of family honour to
drive yourself to the brink of bankruptcy to impress friends and family with a
wedding party that lasts less than day.
Fortunately, my family (and even more fortunately, my wife’s family) never felt the need
to impress their way to the poorhouse.
My own wedding was nice. We set a modest budget, invited
only people we really liked and made sure it was fun and memorable. No gimmicks
or Game of Thrones themes. No hysterics about designer dresses or cakes that
look like the Taj Mahal, only bigger.
As for cash, I really don’t recall receiving
denominations of note from the guests at our wedding. I’m sure there were some
cheques, but we didn’t stay up on our wedding night with a calculator trying to
balance the books.
I do know I still have the barbeque out back we received as
a shower gift. I’ve
had to rebuild it five or six times and the wood shelves are starting to grow
fungus, but my wife is sure that keeping it in operation is a good omen for our
marriage. Plus it keeps me cooking dinner for the foreseeable future.
We got the china and silverware that gets used once a year
at Christmas, and a couple of useful things for our new life together, but we
didn’t
get married or throw a party to get presents, let alone a big wad of cash.
We also didn’t invite people to our wedding thinking that we’d break even, let alone show a
profit. Frankly, the wedding was expected to be a loss.
Luckily,
23 years later the marriage continues to pay dividends
© Stephen Lautens
