Dear Etiquetteer:
I was invited to a “celebration of x and x’s marriage,” which is a sort of reception for a marriage that took place eight months ago. The gathering is at a relative’s home in several weeks. The bride of the happily married couple is my second cousin. The last time I saw her was when she was in grade school. Her father, my cousin, I see only once in several years, mostly at funerals. So, the contact is limited and it feels that I am simply being invited for the gift-giving opportunity. To compound the conundrum, I married several years ago and invited my cousin to the wedding and never received a gift.
So, my questions are two: 1) is a gift required or advisable for my second cousin; and 2) is the fact that my cousin omitted a gift to me a basis on which not to give a gift to his daughter?
Thank you for any insights.
Dear Invited:
The pandemic has delayed many Large Family Weddings, and Etiquetteer knows we’ll see more of these Marriage Celebration parties in the coming year or two*. In that case, a more charitable explanation for including you would be for an extended family reunion, not your potential largesse.
Etiquetteer has said before that an invitation is not an invoice, and would back you up should you choose not to send anything beyond a Lovely Note of Sincere Good Wishes for future happiness. Before you do that, ask yourself what sort of relationship you might like to have (if any) with your young cousin and her new spouse. How you respond to that question will influence your decision to purchase a gift for them. Who knows, it might be worth cultivating the younger generation!
Because an invitation is not an invoice, your cousin’s lack of a wedding gift to you and your beloved isn’t a strong foundation for you to behave likewise. You don’t seem the type to dwell on this sort of thing, but if so, Etiquetteer encourages you to let the memory of that ungiven gift drift over the horizon on a summer breeze. Etiquetteer rather expects that the daily gift of your beloved sharing your life is more valuable than a pair of candlesticks or a crockpot.
*Rather than restage the wedding — a wedding should not be a traveling road show, and should only be revived every 25 or 50 years — Etiquetteer hopes that Happy Couples will choose to host larger-than-usual anniversary parties.