Welcome back to the Charlie moans about wedding planning and wedding things... If you're getting bored, don't worry, it's nearly here, which hopefully means the moaning over it is nearly over. Wouldn't that be good?
What do I want to moan about today? Okay, this is less of a moan, and more of a... I don't know.
Once upon a tradition, people hadn't lived together before they got married and the vast majority wouldn't have lived out of their parent's house, so the things you got for wedding presents were essentially the things to kit out your kitchen or towels, because you didn't have any. It was like with a baby shower - you've not got any of the things you need yet, so here is everything. As time moved on, people potentially had lived out even if they didn't live together - for example, my mum had lived with her sister in law who is also one of her closest friends, whilst my dad still stayed at home with him parents - so instead of needing everything from scratch, wedding presents were things like a better set of pans, like Le Creuset, or a wedding dinner set which only ever comes out at Christmas or special occasions and never for the kids. (I don't blame my parents for that, because I drop things a lot.)
These days, it's really not that uncommon to have lived together before you marry and it's also not uncommon to already have a child or two, and so when people ask what you want as a wedding present, a lot of people will ask for money for the honeymoon. Mentioning no names but a few of my relatives think that is hideous. I'm passing no judgement because I completely understand why that would be the case, but I also understand why people don't much like the idea of it. Maybe one of the reasons I'm not overly fussed either way is because I don't currently have a passport and neither does my son, so we're probably not going to get the chance to book a honeymoon abroad and we've realised that our son isn't the biggest fan of a road trip which takes out a lot of options where we don't need passports. Maybe if we were booking something I would be saying the same as others because hell, we don't need anything...
We've been living in a house that we share since October, were living together in my house for a few months before that and were living across both houses before that, because from pretty early on we knew that we just wanted to spend time together, but none of that is simple, because we had to try and condense the contents of two houses into one, and at the same time gained a whole bunch of stuff for the baby. We were really, really lucky in that we were giving a lot of things to help us with the baby, but it was more stuff to find places for and there have needed to be a lot of decisions to get rid of some things and there's still a lot where we have duplicates of things. Some of that isn't so bad because it's things like milk frothers, which break when I use them a lot so having a spare is fine, or kettles, which is good because we have a baby who needs bottles making and my kettle is a dumbass smart thing that likes dribbling (but we love being able to yell at the Alexa to turn it off when we've left it on Keep Warm) but other things are less easy because they're things like a fridge freezer (so we have one in the garage to keep Costco packs of drinks in or huge packs of chicken nuggets and the other in the house).
All this is to say that tradition wedding presents aren't really something which we would need at all. Fancy wine glasses? We've got a few, ta. Fancy dinner set? As mentioned before, I drop things. In fact, we both do. Also, whilst I can understand that some people might want to get something personalised, I think it's a difficult one if the couple don't have a registry and ask for something particularly, because unless you know people really, really well, taste is a major factor, and decor is personal.
You'd think from all this that I would be all over making a registry for the wedding and the truth is that I tried, but the problem is that we really don't want or need anything we can list from stores and if we do want or need it, it's normally because it's out of the budget of what we can spend on a month to month basis and we're trying to get past the wedding before making any major purchases because weddings are expensive enough, and I'm on maternity leave! Statutory pay is absolutely no joke, and we need to be careful about things we need to pay out for - like the photographer for the wedding - and things we don't - like an American style fridge and a carpenter to modify the kitchen cabinets so it fits where we want it, considering we have a working fridge.
As far as I've researched there isn't something that can create like, pots, essentially, for gifting into, where the money is to be used for something specific, but that people can contribute whatever amount they want to contribute to. Let's face it, I could do a registry and put an American style fridge on there, but there are very few guests coming to my wedding that I think would be spending that kind of money on a gift - nor would I want them to! BUT if were had, for example, a 'pot' for the kitchen which was for the fridge and the work to fit it where it should be going, and people could choose to add whatever they wanted to it as a gift, it takes some of the hassle out for them trying to think of a gift, or the worry we won't need it, use it or like it, and also would help us with actual practical things we need or want to do with the house. Another example could easily be the bathroom. Neither of us is a fan on the tile, the cabinets have seen better days and the general amount of storage in there is abysmal, plus a really stupid part of the shower screen is broken so it's not working perfectly but is not annoying enough to warrant being high on the list for being fixed at present, but have a 'pot' for it where it's assigned to something like Wickes or B&Q or something, something that was specifically bathrooms, that would be really cool, though I appreciate it would be something that would take a whole lot of administration, but it would still be really cool. As it is, when people ask what we need I give the equivalent of a non-comital shrug, because I really don't know...
And let's face it, a gift registry is only ever suggestions anyway...
