Can somebody invite me to their wedding already? I ask this because for the last five or so years, I haven’t attended a wedding, and not because I didn’t want to, it is simply because I haven’t received an invitation.
Either the people I count as friends have been there, done that, or the world has been conspiring to exclude me from this happy occasion after I snubbed the last wedding I was invited to.
I had a good reason, so indulge me. Here’s what happened. I was invited to this wedding where the bride and groom had written a list of the gifts they preferred for their wedding – a gift registry, to be specific. It is essentially a wish list containing items that the soon-to-be wedded couple needs or wants as they start their married life.
If you haven’t attended a wedding since the 1990s, gone are the days when guests would shamelessly check in into the venue carrying the cheapest water glasses they could find in supermarket aisles. Those who put in some effort would buy a modest dinner set. When the poor couple set about unwrapping their stack of presents, they would find themselves the owners of rows and rows of heavy set glasses enough to open a shop with.
Nowadays, by the time most couples make the decision to do a wedding, they have either lived together or lived alone for a while, and have therefore amassed basic utensils like glasses, cups and plates, and even bigger items like washing machines and ice-making refrigerators. So no, no one goes bearing cheap water glasses to a wedding anymore.
And yes, it is now considered tacky for the man’s side of the family to present the couple with a bed.
But I digress. I was talking about the last wedding I was invited to. This wedding, like most nowadays, had a gift registry. Unfortunately, by the time I remembered to open the link that the couple had sent to guests, my fellow cheapskates, who were determined to spend as little as possible, had snapped up all the affordable items, leaving the ones that cost a fortune.
As you can imagine, I went through the list with trepidation. In it was a contribution towards the couple’s honeymoon in Greece, a ridiculously expensive couple’s massage and aromatherapy session in some Spa in Tigoni, a set of pots from that French luxury brand known as Le Creuset, and which I have, mind you, coveted for years but which I haven’t been reckless enough to buy. Once in a while I go to their website just to admire their colourful pieces. So, as you can imagine, there was no way those two were getting that from me. There was also an espresso machine and a double air fryer.
Ladies and gentlemen, in my defense, as much as I liked the couple in question, the wedding was taking place at a tricky time of the month, and after a quick mental calculation, I decided to give the wedding a miss. It occurred to me to still go empty-handed, but knowing myself, guilt would have tightened itself around my neck with every bite of their fried chicken.
Could this be the reason why I haven’t been invited to a single wedding, any wedding, even the ones where I could get away with boring water glasses as a gift?
