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.
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