The Honour of your presents

One of the things I have always wanted to do was to maintain a running list of things I have always wanted to do.

And I have not started the list, but one of the items was always going to be a list of things I have not heard of before. 

That's based on George Carlin's line about sentences no one ever said, e.g. "Hand me that piano" or "Please saw my legs off."

Add this to the list: People getting married are asking their guests to pay their way to attend the wedding.

And I don't mean the price of your ticket and lodging at the Gilligan Islands resort hotel to see Elinore and Trevor tie the knot, I mean they want you to pay for your dinner at the reception at the gala shindig at Les Bouffons. And bring a gift.

File this under unmitigated gall, but don't mention that to Hassan Ahmed from Houston. He's 23 and he wants his guests to shell out $450 each for a seat at his wedding next year.  As of now, he hasn't heard from many of the 125 stunned friends who got the bill in the mail, but he's already $100,000 deep in this affair, having plunked down loot for the venue, the DJ and the photographer.

Ahmed is surprised that the money isn't pouring in, since his friends "have paid a lot more than $450 on Beyoncé or Chris Brown tickets."

That wedding planning website called The Knot asked 10,000 couples who got hitched here last year, and the average cost was $35,000 - up $5,000 from the year before.

Now I feel really chintzy, handing brides and grooms an electric can opener.

Over in London, Matthew Shaw, who runs Sauveur, another wedding planning company but with a French name, says selling tickets “introduces a strange relationship between you and your guests, turning your guests into customers.  You’re no longer hosting — you’re offering them a paid experience, which introduces a very different narrative in terms of what guests are expecting.”

What he's saying is, if you want The O'Hoolahans (Frank and Mildred) to plop down serious coin to attend your hitching, you'd better be certain that the prime rib is truly prime and the salad is crisp and studded with croutons like walnuts on a sundae, which they will also expect.