Celebrating a milestone anniversary can be seen as quite the accomplishment in this day and age. As it becomes more and more popular to put 'No gifts, please' on invitations, can couple politely ask for small gifts without seeming greedy?
Next year, 2017, my husband and I will be married for 50 years and our daughter is planning a party for us at my club which will probably involve a sit-down dinner. Whenever I receive invitations to affairs like this it seems they always state, 'no gifts, please,' so much so that I'm wondering if it would make me seem greedy to not have this on our invitations. I think I would rather enjoy getting some presents! Not that I expect to get toasters and blenders and things like that but some nice, little tokens of regard would be a treat. Has 'no gifts' become de rigueur or may one politely leave that off an invitation to an anniversary party?
-Faithful listener Nancy from Michigan
The answer: This is such a phenomenal question. As far as the point of etiquette here goes, I do think there is something appropriate about modesty and discretion and being circumspect. Those are all really important parts of good etiquette.
At the same time, the direction about gifts on an invitation, I even sometimes don't like the 'no gifts, please' because that's a lot of direction. It's coming off someone else's choice about being generous. It's saying, you know, this is something that I want to be sure that you don't do for me. It is certainly not the norm to include 'no gifts, please' on an invitation. It is not a failure to show appropriate modesty or concern for your guests. You don't need to feel greedy about not including it.
