Woman Says Single People Do Not Have To Give Wedding Gifts To Couples With Two Incomes
After all, isn't the couple's commitment the most important part of a wedding?
@shanisilver / TikTok Wedding etiquette can be an elusive and divisive topic, especially when discussed within the framework of financial affordability.
At a certain age, especially for people in their mid-to-late-20s, it’s common to attend wedding after wedding after wedding. Whole summers can be divided into who’s getting married when, and it’s not always viable for someone to commit to going to every wedding they’re invited to.
A writer named Shani Silver sparked a discussion online, centering on single people’s responsibilities when it comes to attending weddings. One belief in particular seemed to generate conversation, when she made a claim addressed to single people across the world.
She says that single people shouldn’t be expected to give wedding gifts to couples with two incomes.
Silver maintained that a single person’s financial stability is a valid enough reason to not buy a gift for a couple who’s getting married. As she sees it, “You never have to stress out your single finances on your one income to celebrate the love of people with two incomes.”
“You do not have to burden your finances to celebrate someone else’s love,” she continued, calling out the concept of wedding registries in general as having “bad manners.” She noted that wedding etiquette needs to be updated to fit modern times and relationships, where most couples live together for years before tying the knot.
“They have everything they need for their house,” Silver stated. “Probably two of them.”
Silver also believes that wedding etiquette needs to shift away from couples asking for honeymoon money.
“We do not need to be financing someone’s honeymoon,” she said. “If they cannot afford to take a honeymoon, guess what? They don’t get to take a honeymoon. They don’t need to ask their friends — definitely not their single ones — to finance that trip.”
Photo: Soner Gorkem / Pexels
“If you wanna fight about it, I’ll fight about it,” Silver ended her post. It was as though had already predicted the backlash her opinion would receive. Yet Silver didn’t back away, nor did she back down. Instead, she made a stitch video with her original video, in which she took on the echoing feedback loop of the TikTok comments section.
She defended her take on wedding gifts, maintaining that the lives of single people look different than that of a couple with two streams of income.
“I think the realities of our single lives are true and valid and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. They definitely don’t deserve to be minimized, so that we can prioritize everything a couple wants,” she said.
Silver went on to explain the value of the work she does, saying that her work actively centers single people, in a way that “treats single people and coupled people with equal social currency.”
“I think couples who are used to being prioritized see that as a threat,” she said. “It is never my intention to threaten the validity of couples. Quite the opposite. I’m trying to balance the validity of singlehood and couplehood.”
In yet another post on the issue of wedding gifts, Silver clarified her initial opinion, stating, “You never have to harm yourself financially in order to attend a wedding.”
“My content is for single people who are not seen as just as valid or important or successful as their coupled friends,” she continued. “If you need any proof of that, please pay attention to how many people were prioritizing wedding gifts over the financial stability of their single friends.”
Silver also added that burden of gratitude shouldn't fall on a guest attending a wedding.
She gently fought back against one particular comment, one that claimed that “People are spending so much money for you to attend their wedding. It’s so disrespectful to go, eat and drink, and not bring anything to show gratitude.”
Silver responded, “They’re spending that amount of money to enact their own fantasy. Weddings have become fantasy productions, wherein two people have cast all of their friends and loved ones in roles in this fantasy. We did not ask this amount of money to be spent on the event. We did not even ask for an invitation to this event, and we most certainly did not ask for this event as a form of our own entertainment. That is not what a wedding is.”
She touched on the concept of gratitude, shifting the narrative of who should be grateful so as to focus on the married couples’ expression of thanks. She said, “The gratitude portion you’re talking about is when the two people getting married express gratitude to everyone who went out of their way to show up.”
At its core, a wedding exists for only two people — the ones standing beside each other, saying their vows. The point isn’t the party, or the dress, or the gifts. It’s about the emotional pact one person makes with another. If they want to invite others to watch, that’s their choice, just as not attending or not sending a gift is also a choice.
Marriage is a ritual, a decision. Ultimately, it’s a legally binding commitment between two people who love each other and want to build a life together — and that’s the part that matters most.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers relationships, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.