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Wedding Etiquette Forum

Gifts Never Arrived

Bed, Bath and Beyond got royally confused when we moved during our engagement and had to change the shipping address on our registry. (Never mind that we called them three times and changed it on our online profile). Fortunately, my DH's old roommate still lives at the old address so he held on to most of the gifts that were delivered there for us. 

However, he travels for work and wasn't always at home to accept deliveries and after three attempted deliveries two of our gifts were returned to Bed, Bath and Beyond. We called BBB, we know which to gifts they were and who purchased them, but since the gifts have been returned and refunded BBB won't send them to our new address. 

One sender is a good friend who lives in the area and attended the wedding. The other is a much older cousin who I barely have a relationship with who did not attend the wedding.

We were married almost two months ago, thank you  notes for the gifts we received have gone out. I'm wondering what the protocol is for these two gifts:

1) Inform both senders of what happened. This feels gift grabby, especially with the cousin who I've never called or emailed in my life, it feels wrong to call him up and ask about a gift.

2) Ignore it, send a "thank you for coming to our wedding" note the the friend who came and nothing to the cousin who didn't. Risk being perceived as rude by both if they don't realize their gift was returned.

Is there another option? What would you do? I don't even care that much about the gifts, I'd just hate to offend anyone.

Re: Gifts Never Arrived

  • In my mind, they sent you gifts, so the effort and thought counts.  I agree that it's sensitive, and you don't want to come across as gift-grabby.

    I think you should send thank you notes in which you both thank them for the thought put into the gift, and apologize that your move caused confusion with BBB- apologize for the inconvenience.  
    I'd also cloak this wording around other profusive thanks for thinking of you/celebrating with you on your special day.

    Others may have different views, but that's what I'd try to do.  

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  • In my mind, they sent you gifts, so the effort and thought counts.  I agree that it's sensitive, and you don't want to come across as gift-grabby.

    I think you should send thank you notes in which you both thank them for the thought put into the gift, and apologize that your move caused confusion with BBB- apologize for the inconvenience.  
    I'd also cloak this wording around other profusive thanks for thinking of you/celebrating with you on your special day.

    Others may have different views, but that's what I'd try to do.  

    I agree with this. They may see that it got returned and be a little confused or even offended. If you offer a very brief explanation and be sure to thank them for the gift regardless, maybe that will make it clearer as to what happened and that you still appreciate the thought, without seeming gift-grabby. My honest concern (if this happened to me) would be that they knew it got returned and were offended because they thought I didn't like the gift. 
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  • Something similar happened with one of the gifts on my Amazon registry.  It was fulfilled by a 3rd party sender (didn't realize this at the time or I would have rethought adding the item in the first place), and it never showed up.  Amazon said there was nothing I could personally do since I didn't place the order.  There was no tracking number and they wouldn't contact the seller on my behalf or help in any way.  The best they could do was notify the gift giver that the item never arrived.  Stupid fucking policy.

    (Brides-to-be: If my post isn't making it abundantly clear yet, don't register with Amazon.  Not worth it.)

    Anyway.  I felt so awkward about the situation, and dragged my feet on following up with the gift giver because I didn't want to seem gift grabby.  But, I also figured he'd want to know what happened.  So I explained the situation, thanked him for the gift, apologized for the inconvenience, and asked him to let me know if there was anything I could do to help him get his money back.  He was happy I gave him a heads up (surprise, Amazon never emailed him like they said they would!).

    OP's situation is a little different because they got the refund, but I agree that acknowledgement is still important so that they're not confused/offended by the return.
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  • It seems that you need to speak to someone higher up in Customer Service and explain the whole situation. Sometime you need to push a bit to get what you want, and speak up.  I have been on both sides and have been very happy with the results.
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