Re: wedding gifts
I think the reason parents take the money is because desi's have this whole silly culture of "lena dena" so if aunty jee gives you £50 at your wedding, when her daughter gets married, she may not invite you but she will definitely invite your parents, so its your parents that have to give the £50 (plus a lil more) back to them. Some aunty jee might give you a little more than you expected and you wonder why, probably cos your an only child, whereas she has 5 kids who are all married, and your mom has been to each of their weddings and give £50 each time.. so this aunty jee has to repay all those £50's to ur mom.. Like, when my nephew was born, this family who we know came to see him and brought him lots of clothes, shoes, a gold ring, plus £100. My sis-in-law was like wow, we don't even know them and they gave us so much. My mum soon told us that they had lots of grandchildren, and everytime one was born my mum would go and give a gift. So technically what they were doing was returning the favour by returning what my mum had given to aaaall their grandkids to her one grandchild. its weird and silly, but it kinda makes sense. i think these traditions are dying out with our generation though, so we won't have to bear them for ver long!