Etiquette advice for the gift-giving challenged

Ah, summer at last - a glorious time filled with parties galore - barbecues, showers, weddings, graduations, birthdays, etc. All the excitement can leave us with fond, lasting memories with loved ones. Unfortunately, it can also leave us feeling quite a bit lighter in the wallet.

We want to celebrate those that matter to us in a way that honors them but doesn't leave us begging the bank for a second mortgage. More than we'd like to admit, our gift budget is the one line item that has a way of making us feel guilty and inadequate in the realm of personal finance.

My typical Friday conversation with co-workers during the summer starts out as a lighthearted discussion about weekend plans. Whenever it's my turn to share, my plans are nearly always filled with some type of family gathering which necessitates bringing a gift. "Oh," my co-workers say with a sympathetic look, "you're that age."

Yes, we are "that" age. That age where the amount of weddings we've stood up in reaches double digits, and counting. That age where showers are a weekly occurrence, whether they be for expectant parents or blushing brides. That age where our gift giving sometimes exceeds even our growing grocery bill.

Gifts in these situations are an etiquette nightmare, tangled with a complicated adult rule set that no one fully understands. The whole gift giving mess takes the value out of the celebration, raises our dependence on a consumerist society, and ultimately hurts the environment, our relationships, and our self-worth. Looking at the gift giving phenomenon from 10,000 feet, the situation can be quite sickening.

Because I was recently married, I have a timely sense of trends in wedding gift giving. I was amazed at the variety of gifts given for our wedding. Mr. Cents and I were extremely grateful for everything we received, but something still troubles me - the factors people considered to decide on gift giving. A very close friend recently confided in me the wedding gift she gave to an acquaintance. The factors that went into consideration for her gift were the location of the wedding, attending with a guest, and the amount she felt the couple spent on the reception. Because the wedding was more formal than the out of the box celebration Mr. Cents and I held last year, she felt obligated to give a much larger gift - to the tune of around 3x the gift she gave at our wedding. Here's my problem with this - deciding on a wedding gift should not resemble Calculus. A gift based on mathematical formula is not heartfelt.

According to Alternatives for Simple Living, a nonprofit educational organization founded to "challenge consumerism, live justly and celebrate responsibly", gift giving is a valuable, ancient tradition that has somehow lost its original meaning. "We abuse the practice of giving gifts in several ways: we use gifts to bribe or manipulate; we make gifts because of social pressure; we use gifts to alleviate guilt; we give gifts that are inconsistent with our highest values and ideals. While this abuse is not new, the practice of gift-giving has been affected by our consumer society." Even Amy Vanderbilt, author of The Complete Book of Etiquette, says "Today, in our materialistic society, the custom [of gift-giving] has grown to exaggerated absurdity..."

A wedding gift (or any gift for that matter) should be based on your relationship with the person (or couple) and what you can reasonably afford. No one should ever base a wedding gift based on the formality of the wedding, what other people are giving, what they gave you, etc. But don't take my word for it, consider what the etiquette gurus over at the Emily Post institute have to say about wedding gift spending:

The amount spent on the gift should be based on your affection for and relationship with the couple – or their families – as well as your budget. People sometimes say that a wedding gift should cost at least as much as the bride and groom are spending on entertaining each person at the reception, but that is a myth.

Likewise, a couple should not plan their wedding assuming everyone will "pay their own way" or that they will somehow "break even". To make those assumptions is not holding up what's truly valuable - enjoying the celebration with the people closest to you. After all, bottom line, a reception is a party. No one, including the hosts, should go into debt over a celebration. Perhaps if should all follow the advice of Seneca to return to a simpler state of giving:

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

How to have a fabulous wedding by thinking outside of the box

My husband and I built a house and started planning a wedding in the summer of 2006. Within 2 weeks of closing on our brand new house and 6 months of our wedding, I was downsized. My first instinct was to panic due to the responsibilities that come with having a mortgage based on a two income household. Immediately following that panic attack, I realized the wedding we planned for might not be a possibility. Although I was provided a severance package and found a job within a few weeks, my perspective throughout wedding planning stayed the same: focus on the essentials and don't let emotions cloud your future. Here's how I had our dream wedding on a budget less than 1/2 of the national average, and much less than average for our high cost of living area:

Step 1: Be realistic about your dreams

Luckily for us, my idea of a dream wedding wasn't something I had planned down to china patterns since I was 13. Perhaps that changed my perspective but I truly believe there is only one necessity you need to get married: a marriage license and a someone to marry you. Total cost: less than $100 for a civil ceremony. Everything else is just gravy. Chances are, even if you have planned your dream wedding since childhood, it didn't involve an ice sculpture, $10 a piece invitations and open bar. You envisioned a blissful memory with your spouse, surrounded by people important to you.

Yes, a wedding is a very important day, but to give it the relevance to be the "most important day of your life" is to trivialize anything that happened before that day, and anything that happens after that day. A truly memorable occasion doesn't need to happen on a Saturday night during primary wedding season at the Ritz. Get a handle on what's truly important to you and tell the $20 a serving cake designer to shove it when they tell you "but you simply must have this, it is the best day of your life!"

Step 2: Take control of the guest list and the bridal party

Your great aunt Nancy from Nantucket who you haven't seen since you were too short to ride all the good rollercoasters? Nix that. Your mom's entire bridge club? Sorry, no go. I'll tell you the things no one will - you won't be able to talk to any more than 100 guests, even if you have a very long wedding reception. And if you, by some superhuman ability, are able to talk to every one of your 300 guests, you won't have a good time. Isn't the wedding supposed to be fun for you?

Thinking back to the weddings I have been part of the bridal party consisted of a substantial investment in time and money. It didn't necessarily allow me to have a great time at the wedding, and also had a significant financial and emotional investment. I didn't want that for my friends, and as a thank you they were more than happy to provide any help they could, since it didn't carry the traditional obligations of a wedding party. As a result, our costs for transportation (no stretch limo necessary), flowers and gifts were substantially less than that of a traditional wedding.

Being invited to a wedding isn't a birthright - it's a privilege. Treat it that way and the people who are invited will make the day that much more important. If people aren't invited, they will get over it. If they don't, they didn't really understand you to begin with.

Step 3: Be resourceful.

Anything labeled "wedding" is immediately at least double the price of any other item that you would find for a "party". Don't even tell your vendors you are planning a wedding. Don't go to wedding shows and expect to find any deals. Your secret best resource? Craigslist.com. It's where we found a photographer who gave us the digital rights to our prints and stayed by my side for more than 12 hours at a price of $600 - at least $5,000 less than any similar "wedding" package in our metropolitan area. (By the way, I also found my fabulous rental vendor, wedding planner, and bartender practically free on Craigslist.) My photographer had 20+ years experience in the industry and exceptionally talented. He told me he was able to charge much less based on the fact that he didn't spend oodles of money on advertizing and wedding shows.

Step 4: Be flexible in your idea of what a wedding is supposed to be

Our wedding date had special meaning to us….and about 30 thousand other couples married in prime wedding season. Because of my layoff and the million decisions we needed to make when building our house, I had just 6 months when I finally got around to planning the wedding. The fortunate result? Every wedding site with 50 miles was booked for our Saturday night in July wedding. That meant no room for negotiation on any vendors, resources, or location. All traditional methods of saving money on a location: having it at a public place, using a local church's resources, renting a tent and having it at home, or anything else we could imagine, were out of the question. I voiced my concern to my wonderful aunt who said "why not have a brunch wedding?" Genius, why hadn't we thought of that before? Because weddings are "supposed" to happen on Saturday night.

The wedding site where we were married was an elegant golf club that was booked on Saturdays for 2 years in advance. The amenities were beautiful, the staff was helpful, and we were able to negotiate a substantial discount, including omitting the necessary open bar in favor of $5 per person flowing mimosas. Because we had cut the guest list substantially, we were able to have a large after party and invite all the people we wanted to invite if money were no object. Our guests didn't have to dress up and could go back for as much BBQ as they could possibly ingest. Due to our gracious family supplying several outdoor games, we were able to setup a bags tournament that all of our male guests say was the "most fun they've ever had at a wedding". (The after party was my husband's favorite part of the entire wedding and a great time for all our guests.)

Step 5: Relax and enjoy it

Things will go wrong. No wedding will ever be perfect, but because you made it yours, it will possibly be the best day of your life …. So far.