Is a truly crappy gift better or worse than no gift at all?

Absolutely. Like not even close. If for no other reason than I get to mock the crap out of you to my other friends.

But mostly because we're worth a thought. We asked you to share in our special day and paid for you to do so. If you don't have money, paint me a freaking picture (As one of my arty friends did), but don't show up without a gift.

At my wife's bridal shower, my aunts got her xmas tree decorations. So they pitched in on decorations, and my wife is Jewish

jeff2sf wrote:Calvin, son, you're the one who said you felt guilty. Not me.

Second, what I would have liked to see, and Woodrow missed this, is that you should have communicated some of this to them. "Geez, I would love to be in your wedding, but my finances are a little tight". It gets you in the wedding but out of buying a present.

Third, you have a year to get a present, send them a vase from their registry 6 months later.

i am just trying to make myself feel less guilty. ALRIGHT?!

I may have been stiffed on one gift for my wedding. But what makes me a little irritated is that most of my friends at the time were grad students, most of my relatives are solid middle class folks. But I have two aunts/uncles who are wealthy--one has a big ass house in Morristown, the other a big ass house in Bay Head. Easily worth several million each. And neither had (or has) cash flow problems. All their children were college graduates out on their own, and in fact, those who had done grad school had finished that as well. Neither had any expenses due to travel than gas money. And their gifts were not much better than what I got from grad students. In fact, I think one gift was a lamp. Ok, it was a nice lamp. Stiffel I think. It's still a fucking lamp.

And this all makes me wonder how in the hell I'm going to be able to afford anything for my brother's wedding gift. I'm guessing that the brother relationship trumps my being able to pay the rent that month.

Question for the crowd:

-Sent an email to a professor about a research assistant position a week ago. No response. Left a message on his machine about the position 2 days ago. No response. I never know in these situations if it's acceptable to show up or if that comes across as weird.

You're a current student in the program, right? I think your only options are to pop in his office (presumably he keeps regular office hours for that purpose) or if not, call him at home. The other possibility is that he's on leave this semester, in which case, your efforts are futile.

Actually he's a professor in another program, but our program is interdisciplinary so it's not as if it's out of left field. He had the position advertised with a start date of this week, so I'm pretty sure he's around. I just don't know if his not getting back to me is a clue to just drop it. I can understand if he's looking for someone who's enrolled in his program as a grad or undergrad, just wish he'd say as much.

kruker wrote:Actually he's a professor in another program, but our program is interdisciplinary so it's not as if it's out of left field. He had the position advertised with a start date of this week, so I'm pretty sure he's around. I just don't know if his not getting back to me is a clue to just drop it. I can understand if he's looking for someone who's enrolled in his program as a grad or undergrad, just wish he'd say as much.

Well, I don't think checking in during office hours is anywhere close to out of bounds. But I'm guessing he's already hired someone else. It wouldn't hurt to check though. Or at least check with the department's secretary, who would likely know if someone has already been hired.

Thanks.

kruker wrote:And this all makes me wonder how in the hell I'm going to be able to afford anything for my brother's wedding gift. I'm guessing that the brother relationship trumps my being able to pay the rent that month.

Yes but again, he's your brother. Tell him you can't get him a gift this month because of this that and the other thing.

jeff2sf wrote:

kruker wrote:And this all makes me wonder how in the hell I'm going to be able to afford anything for my brother's wedding gift. I'm guessing that the brother relationship trumps my being able to pay the rent that month.

Yes but again, he's your brother. Tell him you can't get him a gift this month because of this that and the other thing.

If you're not married yet, you could make a deal with him--you get him a small token gift, and when your turn comes, you won't expect more than a small token gift in return. You could definitely win big here, by the way, if he or his wife is one of those kind generous people who says "well, he was a poor graduate students, we're doing well know, give him a grand." You'd have to time it well of course--get married before they start popping out kids.

I can't envision a scenario in which I'd give someone other than my son a thousand dollars for a wedding gift

Luckily my grandmom gave us 6K a few days before the wedding which took care of our honeymoon spending money- my parents rented us timeshare condos in Maui and Kauai for 2 weeks and my inlaws bought our plane tix as our wedding gifts- so all we needed was spending money which we went all out and completely blew, my other grandparents 2K, my wife's grandparents 500, and an uncle of hers I never met gave us 1K. Uncle Dick. No shit.

I mentioned talking about this to my wife and she said, "Did you tell them about the smores maker and iced tea pitcher?" Yeah those were two separate gifts as if I need help melting marshmallow and chocolate to put on a fucking graham cracker. And as iced tea maker? All you need is some tea bags and a pot of boiling water. Some people are cheap as shit man.

$6K WAS YOUR HONEYMOON "SPENDING MONEY"?

Jesus christ, my relatives not including parents me like a collective $500 for my wedding

You never know when you're gonna get back to Hawaii brah so we lived like high rollers for a few weeks. We took like 3 helicopter rides, ate at 5* restaurants, did a bunch of excursions. Plus pot there is expensive as hell although very easy to find especially in Maui.

A good friend of mine from college (I'm friends with his wife too, but not as close) invited me to his wedding, which was some 10 day excursion in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Thailand with multiple ceremonies and receptions and bachelor parties that would've cost me like 5 grand to attend. When I told him I couldn't afford that, he gave me grief about it. Then I sent them a wedding present from their registry and got no thank you letter. Hell, I have no idea if they got it or if they even knew it was from me. I think it was prob like 80ish bucks.

My cousin that I haven't seen in years, I couldn't go to his wedding in Arizona, so I got them a present off the registry for like 80ish bucks and never got am acknowledgment either.

What's the spending guideline for giving gifts to people whose weddings you're invited to, but don't go to? And aren't they supposed to thank you for those presents?

lethal wrote:A good friend of mine from college (I'm friends with his wife too, but not as close) invited me to his wedding, which was some 10 day excursion in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Thailand with multiple ceremonies and receptions and bachelor parties that would've cost me like 5 grand to attend. When I told him I couldn't afford that, he gave me grief about it. Then I sent them a wedding present from their registry and got no thank you letter. Hell, I have no idea if they got it or if they even knew it was from me. I think it was prob like 80ish bucks.

My cousin that I haven't seen in years, I couldn't go to his wedding in Arizona, so I got them a present off the registry for like 80ish bucks and never got am acknowledgment either.

What's the spending guideline for giving gifts to people whose weddings you're invited to, but don't go to? And aren't they supposed to thank you for those presents?

First any gift must be acknowledged with a thank you. I think we may have slipped with one cousin where we acknowledged her gift in a thank you to the parents, but otherwise, any gift, for a buck or more, gets a thank you.

Second, your friend with the stupid wedding extravaganza is not your friend if he gives you grief about not attending that. I can't fathom how he thought a friend would go to that, or rather, how he thought it appropriate to give grief.

Third, 50-100 bucks is perfectly respectable to weddings you're not attending. I MIGHT have thrown a bigger gift towards the friend who gave you grief in an effort to play the bigger man and acknowledge how important their friendship was, but again, the behavior of those two sort of validates your decision.

Why yes, I DO have lots of opinions on gifting.

jeff2sf wrote:I MIGHT have thrown a bigger gift towards the friend who gave you grief in an effort to play the bigger man and acknowledge how important their friendship was

It's like when my friend Chris sent us a comforter off our registry, and I was all, What, huh, I thought Chris and I were tight, like him buying us a vacuum tight