Our Worst Wedding Gift

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I know, I know, you're all thinking I'm terribly rude and ungrateful for writing a post with this title, but read on, and I think you'll understand why I feel comfortable publicly calling this our worst wedding gift.

Mr. Knitting's dad added his friend Edward to his portion of our guest list. Even though our invitations said 5pm, Edward and his random male friend arrived at around 5:40pm and awkwardly stood in the hallway for our entire ceremony. Kind of annoying and rude, but not the end of the world.

Then during our cocktail hour he had between 4 and 6 drinks before the bartenders told him nicely that he would have to come back later. Edward did not like this and was very rude to the (extremely nice) bartenders.

During dinner we have decided to serve wine and keep the bar closed until after dinner. When offered wine, Edward told the server to, "Get out of here," (imagine it being said in a gruff drunk older Polish voice). He then proceeded to go up to the bar and harass the bartenders for not serving him. I had to send my dad (who has had lots of experience with cranky Eastern Europeans) up to resolve the situation.


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We think Edward left shortly after dinner, but we're not sure because obviously he did not see it fit to say goodbye to us.

Anyway, as a gift he gave us $300, which I thought was a very generous gift, especially since he doesn't know us. However, when we got back from our honeymoon we discovered that one of the cheques from the wedding had bounced. When the cheque was returned in the mail we learned the truth. The cheque hadn't bounced, he had cancelled the cheque, and as a result we were charged with bank fees.

That's right, this jerk felt he hadn't gotten his money's worth of alcohal at our wedding so he cancelled the cheque. The mean spiritedness behind this action is why I feel comfortable calling this our worst present. It wasn't that he couldn't afford a gift (we confirmed this and would have had no problem had this been the case), it was that he felt our wedding was a commercial transaction. He felt he didn't get his money's worth and therefore was entitled to a refund. In addition, while the bank fees were minimal, the idea of saddling extra fees on a young and broke couple is pretty nasty.

We were somewhat shocked at first, but there's not much to do other than laugh and be glad that we aren't related to Edward and never have to see him again. However, on the advice of Mama Knitting we decided to send him a lovely, yet very passive aggressive thank you note. Here's the text:

Dear Edward,

Thank you so much for attending our wedding. It was so wonderful to have had your warm and joyful presence there. We were honoured to have you share in our special day. Please don't worry at all about replacing the bounced cheque [this is us pretending we don't know he cancelled it because we figure it will infuriate him that we didn't understand that he was punishing us]. It was incredibly kind of you to think of us, but we understand that these are difficult economic times and that not everyone is as fortunate as us. We were just glad to have you there and wish you nothing but the best.

Love,

The Knittings

Ultimately I just feel sorry for him, although he has provided us with one of our more amusing wedding stories! Anyway, we're now officially forgetting him and are instead focusing on all the lovely and amazing people in our lives!

Has anyone else had someone rescind a gift because they felt your wedding didn't deliver?