I like to take friends out for meals, and several of my friends also do the same so we are always swapping and losing track of whose turn it is
And i have a friend who lives far away and both of us mail random gifts
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Super valid.
I just look at it as an extra opportunity for gifting. My single friends get gifts at their big milestones too; new job, roommateless apartment, broke up with a jerk.
Basically if you are my friend I will give you things as part of my llllllooooooovvvvvvveeeeee
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I feel very similarly about this but wasn’t quite sure how to put it into words, so thank you.
ETA: I think my way of gifting has always been to either treat friends to a meal to celebrate an occasion, or host them for dinner. Just my specific gift giving love language
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Yeah, while I don’t love the transactional nature of the idea, it does help me ballpark how much to give. Kind of like how I consider 20% my base tip for things, and go from there. A starting point rather than having to renegotiate everything whenever a wedding comes up. I am not from such an affluent family or community that I could assume my wedding’s cost would be offset by gifts, lol. If I thought that way I would simply not have had a wedding 
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The shooting for the cost of the meal thing is also an etiquette thing that I feel like I’ve heard too? I don’t remember where I picked it up, but I’m sure I’ve seen it in advice columns or somewhere? Just to say I know it’s not something that you like decided on your own.
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Right! I think my mom told me, when I was first getting invites. I think I’ve since read it in like, Martha Stewart Living or whatever.
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Someone I know had a black tie wedding at the Ritz Carlton in Pacifica and told me that we’d make back the cost of our wedding in gifts*, because they did. What a great way to learn you did not pay for your wedding 
*back when we were planning for a summer 2020 wedding
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Man, living is funny. People are funny. Tradition!! Love!!! Conventions!!! 
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This has been such an interesting conversation/ opportunity for self examination!
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Yeah agreed!! I hope no one felt like I was saying they weren’t generous enough/wrong to give what they give or don’t give. It’s a personal choice for sure. And having been on both sides of a wedding now, more than anything my takeaway is I feel honored when I am invited and also understanding when I am not, knowing all the complicated choices people are negotiating. Oof!
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A friend here has a lake cabin and every few years hosts a get together. She just told me she’s planning one, and first thing out of my mouth was, “What can I bring?” I suggested a stuffed mushroom appetizer I’ve made before and she said something like, “Yeah, I’ll send around a group text and let everyone know what we are providing and won’t. Then the rest of you can add whatever you’re bringing.”
Since that was 2 hours ago or so, I’m amused. It was absolutely my immediate, automatic response.
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Wedding planning has surfaced so many wedding etiquette things that some people feel really strongly about and I have been totally oblivious to! Apparently I should have been looking at the colors used on invitations to know the wedding colors and then either coordinated my outfit appropriately or not worn those colors to not be confused for a bridesmaid (still confused about this, clearly). I also learned that because we used the phrasing “come celebrate our wedding” on our evites at least one person thought we had already been legally married and were now holding a belated celebration 
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Ngl I got tired just reading that. :o
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The gifting as a love language is wild and foreign to me
This year i gave Partner a funny fridge magnet for her birthday.
Last year I gave her a lake rock with an inside joke written on it.
That’s the extent of our gifts.
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Me too!
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Wedding drinking
I have Liverpool Irish family, or go to plenty of Events hosted by people who grew up Muslim. So those are opposite drinking strategies.
A friend who rarely gifts has been sucked in by her besties culture where every gift is 50-200$; but she and I are super uncomfortable with money gifts. Her bestie augut her to put cash received in an envelope and pass it to the next gift occasion.
For going to houses - if I’m formally invited I usually bring flowers or a box of chocolates or something the first time. After that, formal or not, I bring tiny (usually food) treasures if I saw something and thought of you in proximity to the invite. I will ask with dinners if I should bring something, and will usually use that moment to remind about my food allergies and what I eat that they might serve. And if you say not to bring anything and don’t feed me I’m pissed and eating a larabar in the bathroom. Because unless you will die of contamination allergies I will feed you - and even then I will have something certified safe and packaged and something that I can explain my decontamination process but am not offended if you don’t want to risk it.
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Ilu
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Same here–there was a wave in college (when all I could afford was something small from the registry, but since they were also college students that was understood), but these days everyone involved has everything they want and it’s just a celebration.
ETA–This reminds me of the last wedding I was at where a couple of us had helped them move into a new apartment a month or two before…if someone had tried to give them more things while they were still trying to make their kitchen usable, there would probably have been an explosion 
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And, you are ULTRA generous in other ways, like with your grant funding for makers!
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This conversation has moved super fast!
Destination wedding - my sister had one because it was cheaper for her husbands family to fly to the Dominican and stay for a week than Newfoundland to Alberta. She didn’t want any gifts, we still have her some cash. Airfare in Canada is ridiculously expensive.
Wedding gifts- I have given varying amounts of cash, or have purchased something off a registry that was not insanely overpriced. One friend’s wedding, I was asked to be a bridesmaid after she fired one of the group, then told me she should have asked me because I “photograph well”. I had to pay for the bridesmaid dress ($300) with the whole (oh you can wear it again!) premise. Anyways, she was marrying a fairly wealthy guy, and I ended up not giving her anything for the wedding because I could not afford to do anymore than pay for the dress. And they already had everything.
Bridesmaids dresses are just a whole other THING.
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