You agreed to a wedding…that should be her gift. BTW, cancel the wedding right now…that will be a gift to yourself ;)
Yeah, when I found out I had to bring a wedding gift to my wedding I was fairly taken aback. And incredibly annoyed. I had already spent months playing the wedding finances dance (“How much is that cake?” “$200.” “I think that would be great for our wedding.” “Oh it’s for a wedding? Then it’s twelve hundred.”) and experiencing an ever escalating rage. Just the sort of emotion you want going into a marriage. So when I discovered I was required to bring some sort of gift for my bride, I went a little nuts. But I kept it to myself for once. Thank god. You have to do it. That’s that.
I forget how exactly I found out, though I know it wasn’t from my wife, who just assumed that I knew about this tradition. Somebody said it in passing, I think, a few days out from the event. “Whaaaaa?” I really dodged a bullet on that one, not that she would have held it against me–though I’m sure she would have been disappointed–but rather that I would have felt like a real boob. For the rest of my life.
I got her a beautiful little diamond studded heart necklace. She spent the moments leading up to the ceremony (I’d sent it into her dressing room of solitude with her sister) in a tizzy over whether she had to actually wear it with her wedding dress, which was perfect without it. She gave me a hardback journal with a brass plate afixed to the front cover upon which she’d had the date engraved. Yes…engraved. It has a place of honor in our trailer. I’m a nuts for really high quality journals (or paper, or stationery) as long as they are leather bound or otherwise lending the appearance of manliness to something that is otherwise a fairly girly gift.
She loves the necklace, though I think it’s nothing all that unique or special, because it was from me on our wedding day. So if your girl doesn’t care for jewelry and/or isn’t into writing things down, all I can say is go with what DrCrypt said. Think and it’ll come to you.
“You must learn to conceal your special gift and harness it until the time of the gathering.”
-Amanpour
Get a custom made ring. I mean with nice scrollwork, not just flat band with a big stone. I haven’t met a woman that doesn’t like lots and lots of jewelry - even if they never admit it to men, they’ll compare rings when the guys aren’t around.
Or a pearl necklace. Can’t go wrong there either. I don’t know how low or high grade Mikomoto pearls are on the international market, but generally they’re a good buy for the OTC kind of jewelry.
[edited for mah bad grammar]
I’m amazed anyone can still purchase a pearl necklace with a straight face.
We need more bickering threads!
Get her a copy of Battlefield 2.
Isn’t that the point of the video?
I made a counted-cross-stitch thing with our wedding date and names on it. Actually, I made about two-thirds of it, never finished it, and haven’t touched it in 17 years or so (we’ve been married 18 come September). We joke that I’m never going to finish it because she’s only hanging around waiting for it.
For me, she got (or rather we picked out together) an Amish quilt in a double wedding ring pattern that’s still on our bed.
I read this and immediately turnd around and asked my girlfriend if this was a common custom.
“Yes. Sure, you’re supposed to give each other gifts.”
So, first of all Dr. D: is your FYANCE going to give you something? Since, you know, you sort of already gave her exactly what she’s asking for, probably about a year or so ago. HINT: it’s on her goddamned finger and busted you out for 4 or 5 figures’ worth.
I wonder of the origins of this tradition. I guess that, after a woman’s family gives a suitor her dowry, the man ought to come up with a favor of affection, or something.
Personally, I like the videocam idea. If you had more than 9 days, you procrastinating loser, I’d tell you to by a small journal and fill it with poetry you found and wrote, because it made you think of her. Tell her you’d been doing it for years or something. Use lots of different pens and pencils. Google and go! Sure, it’s half-bullshit, but it half isn’t, and anyway I’m thinking you’re going to have to hedge your story a bit regardless with the nuptuals a week hence.
This thread is crazy. I’m up at Lake Tahoe at the moment for a friend’s wedding. I’m one of his two closest friends. The other is the best man, and my girlfriend is the Maid of Honor or whatever. Oops, I mean he was until he flipped out and bailed last Saturday (the ceremony is tomorrow), right before the bachelor party. So, I had to be deputized to Best Man right on the spot and put together a bachelor’s party in about two hours. Now, I’m trying to think up a goddamned toast and googling famous quotes and the like. I feel bad because other than the location and the fact that the bride and groom are great for each other and totally in love, this ceremony will, but for some extreme willpower on the part of all involved, fucking suck.
Besides the Best Man bailing out (due to an acute attack of selfish crazy than I can best summarize by linking you to this), the bride’s best friend - the original MoH - is now a former best friend, as the two parted ways bitterly last summer (thus, my girlfriend’s promotion). And, the father of the bride won’t be there because of his bitter seperation from the mother. So, essentially, the 3 most important people at a wedding after the actual couple being married and the priest will not be in attendance.
Better yet, the original best man wasn’t even supposed to be the best man (because the chances of him pulling something stupid like this was better than even odds). Both he and the bride assumed so (so did I, against better judgment), though, and the groom acquiesced (it’s his nature). He figured as much might easily happen, with over a year to go until the actual wedding, and he told me so right after the announcement (he assumed correctly that I wouldn’t act dejected because he chose the other dude, whom he’d known longer, and that I’d happily take over and/or make sure things got taken care of without resentment if things went down the way they did), so I was partially prepared (like, I had a few hundo put aside for the party and whatever - well, except for this toast). I’ve spent the last week doing what I can to make the two feel alright about things and put aside the fact that I want to kick my ex-friend’s fucking ass for this bullshit, selfish, sucker move.
Go Billy bob thorton style. Pretend you’re making out with your really hot half sister and giver her a vial of your blood.
well hopefuly you’ll get something sweet.
I scored bigtime with Patriot tickets… woo !!
I couldn’t recall if we did this or not, so I asked my wife if we did this gift exchange. She couldn’t recall either, and hadn’t heard of this. Wondering if there was some lingering wound that she was avoiding talking about, I asked, “Did I mess something up back then? Should we have done this?” She responded, “Why? Didn’t we have each other?”
Not only didn’t my wife and I exchange gifts, but we didn’t even register. Of course I’ve spent the last 5 1/2 years hearing about how we’re damned well going to renew our vows at our tenth anniversary just so we can register for mad loot.
mad loot is the best part.
Wedding night was like… lets open the cards… the hell with sex, we can do that when ever…
Ok, lets count it now!
wooo!
I liked the mad loot part a lot.
:D
Of course we blew it all on the honeymoon but whatever. (Which, incidentally, was twice as romantic and four times as expensive as DrCrypts honeymoon with Koontz.)