The Plunge Blog

A reader writes:

"My fiance and I have been engaged for 6 months and are getting married in Summer of 2011 and in the time we have been together we have gone to a few other weddings and have more coming up in the future. I took a look at the wedding registry for one of the upcoming weddings and the items on there are ridiculous! Some of the highlights are:

$165 for a Gravy boat
$58 for a salt and pepper shake (each, not a set)
$100 for an electric toothbrush

My parents had a fine china set and in the 23 years I lived with them, my mother used it maybe 3 times. The worst part is that courtesy of The Knot and its dozen or so clones, my fiancée seems to think these are acceptable gifts to ask of our friends and family for our wedding. How do I explain to her that it's all just useless stuff we don't need, and that it would much better to ask for gifts of cash...to actually pay for part of the wedding!"

________

A deluxe gravy boat is like flying first class: you don't think it's worth the money, but once you get a taste, you can never go back. In the grand scheme of your life, there will never, ever be money better spent than that china gravy boat.

Kidding. Of course you're right. This is the structural problem with modern weddings. Many decades ago, in a simpler era, the gift of crockery made perfect sense: couples got married straight out of college, they didn't have squat, so the 100+ friends helped them start their new life.

These days? You have forks. You have spoons. You have every damn bit of cutlery you'll ever really need. Sure, you could "upgrade," but why not get some shit you'd actually like?

Happily, through some savvy manipulation of your wedding registry, you can actually transform those gravy boats into cash, all Rumpelstiltskin like.

Okay. This is kind of funny.  And it's so obvious that it's amazing it hasn't happened a million times before. (Or maybe it has. And no one notices.)

The movie Wedding Crashers, of course, explores the idea of sneaking into weddings to score with girls.  But what about scoring with gifts?  There's usually a ripe, glittering table full of blenders and towels and fine china, just yours for the taking.

One woman decided to do just that.

 

Earlier today, the delivery guy dropped off a thick magazine full of wedding paraphernalia. We like these magazines. They're good for kindling, spitballs, and emergency toilet paper.

Before we used the magazine for something useful, though, we peeked inside it. And we were horrified to find some cheesy, outrageous accessories not just for the bride, but for the groom.

It dawned on us... Some men might actually buy this. 

Allow us to intervene.

Now this is the kind of wedding article you can show your fiancée.

The NY Times reports that a couple in Silicon Valley is scrapping the traditional gift registry in favor of web hosting, Red Bull, and other dot-com start-up costs.

In their video, below, the couple says that they wanted to "rebel" against the tradition wedding registry, and we say, brilliant. (Also, it should be noted, this is a brilliant little PR stunt for the couple's new start-up, Aboomba. You can't buy this kind of coverage.)

So what can you learn from this? No, we don't suggest that you actually convince your fiancée to dramatically overhaul the gift registry for something this outlandish. But this is one more reminder that, as we say in How to Get Cash, Not Vases, you no longer have to settle for gravy boats and toaster ovens. Get more creative.

From The Times:

We know what you want as the perfect wedding gift, the most special thing in the world, the one offering that's near and dear to your heart: cash.

And in this economy, of course, you're not alone. More people want more cash. The Wall Street Journal hops on the new "How the Economy is Affecting Weddings" bandwagon, giving some (sort of) helpful advice on how you can discreetly, tactfully request cash.

From the WSJ:

It's an awkward subject for most people. But there are a few things a bride and groom can do to encourage cash gifts without offending Great Aunt Mimi.