One of my female friends Audrey got engaged last year to her boyfriend of 5 years and they were supposed to be joined in marital bliss this past Saturday. Alas they canceled the wedding two weeks ago. The story goes that Audrey refused to down size the wedding even though her Fiancee Rueben could no longer afford half of her extravagant demands. I was actually quite touched (slang=hurt) that Ru as I call him was denying his bride the day of her dreams until I heard the requests. So he could no longer afford to transport the bridal party and V.I.P guests in chauffeur driven Rolls Royce and instead had organised the bridal party to ride in HIS 300C Chyrsler and the V.I.P driven in his friends assorted luxury cars (all black). Instead of having the Park Hyatt Hotel cater he wanted to get his client's brothers catering company which serves to exclusive clients anyway for a lesser price. Furthermore instead of his guest each getting an inscribed watch for the men and bracelets for the women he organised a free weekend spa for the ladies and grand prix tickets for the men again via the courtesy of his client's. The things that remained the same were the number of people invited, the dress (although he got his suit at discount), the number of brides maids and grooms men.
Audrey aka bridezilla called me moaning and crying that her wedding was not going to be the same blah blah blah. I'm sorry but I had no sympathy for her people. Ru could have postponed the wedding all together because of the financial climate we are in and instead he decided to use his connections to get a cost effective wedding and HER issue is she can't claim her wedding was the most expensive amongst all her friends? My other issue with this women was that she had a wedding register now unlike your normal register this woman organised her wedding register to have a his and hers thing. The ladies had to buy gifts for her and the male guests had to buy gifts for the groom. Now I looked at Ru's register and was envious of Black because Ru was not asking for expensive things. This chick goes and registers half of her gifts at Tiffany's and Swarovsky! Do I look like I have money to buy YOU a dining set or even glasses at either of those places? In any case I ended up buying her a glass set swiped on my credit card (I refuse to name the amount all I can say is I could have bought a pair of Jimmy Choo's). Now this woman also requested we send the gifts by a certain date to her mother's house as they would not be accepting gifts at the church or reception.
In any case the wedding did not go ahead so I called her to ask for my gift back and she point blank refuses saying it was given as a gift. I told her yes that it was given as a gift ...a wedding gift...her ass was not married was she? Because she did not have a bleeding wedding. Meanwhile back at the ranch...Ru has already returned all his gifts back with a note of apology and an invitation to his house for dinner. Anyway rather than fighting with Audrey I took Black with me and went to her mother's house to collect my gift and while I was there collected two other friends gifts who had also called to get their gifts back. Her own mother said that she was not telling her daughter that she was returning the gifts because she was too materialistic and would not return those gifts on her own.
Anyway knowing that she was in the wrong Audrey starts talking a whole bunch of nonsense at a party that Black and I were both at about how I and those friends who had gone to get their gifts back had stole her wedding gifts. I confronted her and told her that if she thought a crime of theft had occurred she should contact the police rather than spreading rumours about people. I also told her stupid ass I would sue her for slander because we were at a party where not only Black had clients but I had people who I worked with there and would not stand for my character to be assassinated.
My question to blogville what is wedding etiquette when it comes to gifts and weddings that either don't go ahead or end so soon after the celebration. May I also point out I unlike a lot of other people did not ask her for the return of the engagement gift she received from me last year.
