Mine was $16k. Reception, cocktail hour, and buffet style dinner held in the aquarium building at the zoo. Dinner + drinks package was $52.00 per person and I think we had 40-ish people attend. It was in the Midwest (Toledo, Ohio) 5 years ago. The $16k was everything we spent on the wedding, including the hotel for the week of the wedding, dress, suits, etc.
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Me too! In fact, since I can’t attend my cousins wedding next month I’m sending her way more for a gift than I would have if I had attended. I spent our normal gift amount on the gift I sent for her shower, and then I’m going to send a card and money for her wedding.
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Ewwwwwww
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When I got married I asked everyone for a toaster. It seemed like an accessible gift for everyone. We got a ton of toasters. Then we returned them all and used the money to get a mattress.
I still don’t have a toaster.
(Actually I do, my dad got it for himself when he visits, but it lives at the back of the too cupboard and I claim no ownership)
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You’re supposed to send a gift if you’re invited, whether you attend or not. It seems like people don’t really follow the rules of etiquette like they used to, when it was a THING. But those are officially the rules. My grandmother was from a time and place when etiquette rules were a big deal and she followed them as closely, if not closer, than her rules of Catholicism. She made sure her kids and grandkids who were within hearing distance knew them too. I was always near her, so I got to learn all sorts of rules.
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I think that I’ve always followed this because I’ve never said no! But I would struggle with that one if I thought they wanted a certain value from me. Otherwise I’d be happy to buy something.
I feel like registries are less common now for everything, what do other people think?
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I didn’t micromanage baby registry gifts. I used shop savvy and then just returned all the silly over the top outfits and uses the credit for diapers. 
If anyone noticed, they never said a word near me.
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I guess registries are less common because fewer people are setting up a household at the same time, so it seems less needed?
We got a bunch of cut glass bowls from my parents’ friends for some reason. Several appeared to be multiple regifts based on the dinged boxes. At the time the Bay was very good about taking back things with no receipts and giving us store credit.
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I think that’s part of it. For us, when we got married we lived in a 400 square foot apartment. We didn’t even have a dining room table so tons of tableware wasn’t really a thing we needed or had room for. Ditto for other “house” things. We had no registry so almost everyone gave us cash and we used some of it to go on a huge awesome trip.
ETA: Also the “gifting only people who get married not singles” is such an interesting perspective! I’ve never seen it that way because I gift people for non-relationship or non-family achievements all the time! I mean, at a wedding the only people who get a gift are the couple getting married, other engaged people at the wedding don’t get gifts, nor do other married people, just the people hosting! Same with birthdays, other people not born on that day don’t get gifts, just the birthday person! It’s a way of highlighting someone and celebrating them IMO! And I think celebrating weddings is nice not because it’s “the biggest accomplishment” but almost because it’s not an accomplishment at all. Love is so hard to find and when someone finds it there is always a huge element of luck involved. Two of a kind finding each other in a world so vast and diverse, IDK, that’s totally worth celebrating to me! Just like graduating a program or getting a new house or having your first art show!
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I feel like weddings have changed a lot because people are older when they get married and have already set up a household.
Our friends mostly married fairly soon after high school or right after college, so nobody had a toaster. And nobody in our circle had a sit down dinner for a reception, either - it was either punch and cookies after the ceremony or a buffet in someone’s backyard. I was a bridesmaid several times and I sewed every one of those dresses and yes, I did wear them again as they were 100% of my fancy dress collection. LOL
So yes, weddings are a lot more expensive now, but they are a lot fancier, too!
Wedding presents I still have - a blue tablecloth, a dried puffer fish, a candle stick, a crystal sugar and creamer that have never been used for sugar and cream but they were from dh’s great aunt.
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Honestly I wonder if that’s part of the problem. Because while I’m positive there’s lots of millennials who wanted big fancy weddings themselves, there’s also a lot of people I know like me who would have done virtually NOTHING if allowed, but mom and MIL pressures were intense. Very much a “you need to have more/better/bigger than I did, I need to live vicariously through you” thing. I had to claw my way to a small simple wedding and even then I made massive waves. And I could advocate for myself better than a lot of young women I know. (I married at 26- young for my overall cohort!)
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Reusing a paper bag 3-4 times is necessary to offset the higher environmental cost compared to plastic.
But how? Production cost? Really? How can we measure the effect of using up limited amounts of petroleum? Don’t we need to wait a long time for more dead dinosaurs? Wouldn’t plastic zero day kill us?
But even letting production cost stand, doesn’t the paper turn into dirt and the plastic turn into micro plastics? (Until we train the mushrooms and snails)
Reusing things is obviously better, but I just can’t see this thing being true
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I saw an interesting one on this. Pretty sure it was this one, but I can’t watch it right now to verify.
Biggest thing is in how you define it and across what parts of the life cycle and all.
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Would other people be into a thread specifically on athletic gear? This would include outdoors stuff, yoga, taking long walks, and all levels of participation not just elite or competitive. I’m finding that I often turn to OMD for recs on everything from rain jackets to leggings, and now I’m outfitting myself for camping and having more questions! I feel like I’ve been asked about sports stuff a lot here too, especially shoes-- would people like this? Could also include tips for packing, doing it with kids or disabilities or on a budget or as a total beginner, etc.
Would you like a thread for all gear sports/outdoors related as well as how-to questions related to active living stuff?
- Yes! I’d participate.
- I’d read it but not participate.
- Ew, sports.
0 voters
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For camping we have this a little bit under the parenting section, but obvious geared toward camping with kids! But yes I’d def participate, anything I can do to help people love and be comfortable outdoors thrills me to my core.
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Yes, that’s what gave me the idea! I was thinking it could be more overarching for all sorts of activities 
if a few more people vote yes I’ll start it for sure!
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Anyone know what this is? I found it under my kitchen sink and it was still in a plastic sleeve so it hasn’t been used. I also doubt it is old because we’ve only been in this house for six months.
That is INSANE. I have a few cotton bags that I use for all sorts of things, I’ve had for 8-10 years, and they’re still going strong, but 45 years to recoup production energy/emissions vs a single use bag is a long time, haha.
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Do you have a whole house water filter? We did in our last house and we had something that looked like that to change the filter
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Fuck ton of hemlock looking plants on my parents property where the kids play. Most efficient way to get rid of them is?
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