Whats up with the one-way gift giving?!?

[PunjabiRose]

@Sara516

all the dudes in my family married modern-ish women so i never got anything.
I feel so cheated

^ lol

@sidra87

I agree with PunjabiRose and others who have posted here 100%. Gift giving should be a 2 way street, it is about the happiness of two individuals and two families who are getting together. Both sides deserve equal respect. The girls side and the guys side. Sadly, it also goes back to the old umm non muslim thinking that the girls side and the guys side had the girl is a burden is on the family so we are thanking you to take her away so here is a gift for you. Aap nei hum sei humarei beti lai lei app ka bohaat shukarea!! LOL

Yea… Shukriya… humara wazan chuka rahey ho. Here is our way of thanking you for doing this.

Sucks… but it does make the connotations behind it seem that way due to it being one-way.

@Pinky5786

Yah very right and I can actually feel what you are saying Punabi Rose…the guilt is really bad, the whole wedding function, clothes, jewellry, shoes, makeup, dowry and then to top them all giving gifts to the immediate family (that SHOULD include gold besides expensive clothes) the groom and clothes to 22 uncle aunties from MIL side and 35 uncle aunties from FIL side! it all gets too much!!

In our family we only give gifts to the immedite family not the whole khaandan but my fiance told they do so in their family. I told him to provide the list (bcoz frankly I cant memorize how many they are!) my MIL called and said that ‘if you dont have it in your family you dont have to do it, hamaray tau hota hai… apki merzi hai…’ this was a reply I couldnt interpret whether she wants us to do it or not, I have chosen not to do it!!

Yea… as much as I want a beautiful shaadi… my guilty conscious always outweighs everything.

Hm… Pinky…it sounds like your MIL DOES want you to do the whole khandaani gift giving. She used the reverse psychology way of getting the point across. Kinda like how kids ask their parents if they can do something… and parents say “well in my opinion I wouldn’t do it… but it’s your life so you can decide”. And you totally know that they are basically telling you not to do it. But PROPS to you for choosing not to do it.

So a small update to u guys on my confusion about the gift-giving situation. I had a luvely lengthy discussion about this topic with my mamma and found out that in our family we only give presents to the very immediate family. Not extended. I told her that in my fiance’s family I have been able to figure out that they definitely follow the tradition of giving gifts to all the extended family. My mom in a nice and simple way basically said “thats not happening” lol. She said she was stressing about it before… but has come to a conclusion that she should stick to our own family’s tradition. She was like um yea… we will literally go broke if we did the whole extended family gift giving thing… my fiance has like 32 aunts and uncles combined that she knows of so far. She has no idea how many cousins my fiance has (more than 25 for sure she says) and since my Fiance is one of the younger ones in the family… most of his COUSINS are MARRIED and have kids of their own . My mom was like yea… it looks bad if we gifts to some extended family and not others… so its better not to give to any of them.

I then later was talking with my fiance and brought up the ridiculous one-way gift giving tradition… I told him that I know his family is all about it… but that my family doesn’t take it to the level his family does. I was like dude… how many extended relatives do u even have?!? Like aunts and uncles and cousins??? He was like in all honestly… I have no idea… way too many thats for sure… u guys better not start getting them presents… u will go broke. I was dying… he basically repeated the same thing my mom had said!

So I know where my mom stands on it…and where my fiance stands on it… I also know where my in-laws stand on it (on the opposite side of fiance and mom)…

To be continued…