S/O: What's the worst non-registry gift you got?

[tarheels]

Mine was a cupid potpourri bowl. It had three cherubs holding a glass bowl up from underneath.

A friend of mine got a giant candle...carved in the shape of a hen sitting on a nest...from her new MIL. It came with some story about having kids soon and being a mother and taking care of chicks.

[heygrey]

a knitted doll toilet paper cover.

[emoflamingo]

A tie between the flimsy laundry basket full of Dollar Tree laundry detergent, fabric softener and bleach (I couldn't use the detergent or softener because I have sensitive skin. Bleach was good, though.) or the picnic basket full of cheap plastic dishes. I don't "do" outdoors, I've never been camping or on a picnic. I would say that I wasn't sure why I received it except it was also from a Dollar Store type place and my cousin (who married 6 weeks before me and had a "post-wedding" shower since her wedding was a 6 weeks slap it together type shindig after my wedding) got the same gift.

[mrs.jacinthe]

A calendar. With both kittens and Bible verses. For the current year.

We got married in July.

[thewop]

A really weird Christian parenting book as a baby shower gift from one of H's cousins. I'm Christian, but the book is full of obscure scripture and strange punishments. The gifter said it worked really well for her kids, even though any time I've seen her kids, they're not well behaved at all.

[thewop]

Jul 16, 2012 11:20:32 GMT -5 @crackhabit said:

ooooh, what kind of punishments?

I honestly don't remember anything specific off the top of my head. I just remember flipping through it at home going WTF? It's been in a drawer since the day I got it.

[aweilba]

We got a set of homemade place mats from one of my dad's cousins. She made a set of two for each holiday. Thoughtful, but never having met her before, she wouldn't have know I wouldn't dig them. They looked very similar to this one, just variations on the colors for each holiday:

[ssmjlm]

A lenox gold rimmed candle holder and candle. That looked like it had seen better days.

It went straight to goodwill.

[minniebee]

A naughty nurse costume.

To make it worse, it was from a friend of H who was also a former co-worker of his. Because H had relocated since working with her, I had never met this woman until our wedding day. Bold gift to give to a bride you've never met.

[simpsongal]

A plastic, elongated bread holder w/some handed painted saying about marriage on it (NMS/crafty). On the back, it says not to use the bread plate for food. WTF?

[sierramist03]

A large swirl multi picture holder from LTD.

[downtoearth]

A crystal set of champange flutes - really they are nice and expensive, but just NMS.

We still have them and have used them about 3 times in 7 years, so they weren't terrible.

I guess we were lucky to get really good off-registry presents.

[kaylie]

A porcelain and brass picture from from Lenox that was just NMS. We brought it to Macys and got a $20 credit.

[Susie]

I think our worst gift was actually a registry gift. It was a plastic BB&B shopping bag containing a number of cloth napkins, a bagel slicer, and possibly one or two other things, a blank card and envelope, and the shopping receipt (not gift receipt) dated the week of our wedding. The guy was a groomsman. He forgot about it at the time, and didn't find it until years later. He handed us this plastic bag sometime around our 3rd or so anniversary, by which time we'd bought what we wanted/didn't receive ourselves.

[FoxInFiji]

A large handmade plastic spoon rose made of both black and white spoons because the everyday dishware we registered for was black and white.

[natablue]

A set of knives where the handles looked like deer antlers. A pillar candle, that was about 2 feet tall, and 8 inches in diameter, with our wedding invitation glued onto it and decorated with ribbon.

AND... a blanket with a Precious Moments bride and groom on it. Trimmed out in light blue satin. Made by my MIL's best friend, who we had the unfortunate privilege of opening in front of. We thanked her graciously, of course.

[tarheels]

Jul 16, 2012 12:29:19 GMT -5 natablue said:

A set of knives where the handles looked like deer antlers.

Haha! Like this? They're total classics lol. I have my great-grandfather's and use them in the fall. But they're definitely taste specific!

[hunniapple]

I don't think any of the non-registry gifts we received were bad at all! The only issue we had were people duplicating things we already had either bought ourselves (toasting glasses - we got three sets as gifts in addition to the ones we had ordered) or non-registry substitutes for items we had on the registry (double frame for holding invitation and photo). Guess we were lucky.

[emoflamingo]

Fox wins!

I forgot about the frames. OMG people. Not everyone wants a wedding cake shaped frame. Maybe I'm missing part of my brain, but I cannot stand mushy themed frames or frames with engravings. If it says "Bride and Groom" on the bottom, I can't swap the picture out!

[hunniapple]

Jul 16, 2012 12:48:02 GMT -5 emoflamingo said:

Fox wins!

I forgot about the frames. OMG people. Not everyone wants a wedding cake shaped frame. Maybe I'm missing part of my brain, but I cannot stand mushy themed frames or frames with engravings. If it says "Bride and Groom" on the bottom, I can't swap the picture out!

I actually don't mind the frames at all but noone went overboard. We got a lot of frames but many we registered for (non-wedding related), and the duplicate invite one I mentioned just got returned for store credit. We don't need two of those.

Someone got us a frame from Personalization Mall, which I actually loved and have on my nightstand. I got it for my shower and used it on the card table at the reception on our wedding day.

(Not my frame - this is the website photo)

[mrssavy42112]

Shockingly, I didn't really get anything terrible off registry. Only 2 gifts & I guess the 'worst' one was a candle & rock centerpiece. It's not what I wanted, but not terrible. I'm pretty sure it was regifted because she was a newlywed and it wasn't from any of the stores we had registries at so we couldn't even return it.

[mekko]

A porcelain bride and groom figurine. I gasped when I opened the box because their facial expressions were so creepy looking.

Turns out it was creepy AND expensive. I returned it for a $200 store credit. So in hindsight, maybe it wasn't the worst gift....

[natablue]

Jul 16, 2012 12:37:09 GMT -5 tarheels said:

Jul 16, 2012 12:29:19 GMT -5 natablue said:

A set of knives where the handles looked like deer antlers.

Haha! Like this? They're total classics lol. I have my great-grandfather's and use them in the fall. But they're definitely taste specific!

YES THEY WERE EXACTLY THESE!!! The couple that gave them to us, the guy was an avid hunter. So I guess in their mind, these made sense? Haha!

[FoxInFiji]

Jul 16, 2012 12:48:02 GMT -5 emoflamingo said:

Fox wins!

LOL I guess if you want to call it "winning".

To be fair it was from my crafty grandmother who also gave us a set of towels or something like that. She makes the plastic spoon roses by cutting off the handles and putting the spoons in the toaster oven until they are pliable. Then shapes them into rose petals and hot glues them together into a big rose. To top it off she glues fake leaves on the back and adds a plastic rose bud on one side. She likes to repeat craft projects so this was my 3rd plastic spoon rose. But at least the other ones were normal flower colors. But black and white alternating petals do not look normal!

[statlerwaldorf]

I actually don't remember. It couldn't have been anything too bad.

[peach]

We were given from DH"s great aunt...

a dusty cardboard box. Inside, was a black plastic tray. With gold painted trim, and red flowers painted in the center. It was scratched and obviously well used, and from the 70's.

And we had to open it in front of her, and she was SOOOO proud. Worst thing is, she is super rich!

[duckduck]

I got this gem at my shower from my MIL. Inside were various Dollar-General toiletries, including age-reducing body wash and anti-cellulite lotion (I was 26 and a size 2). And a skimpy tank-and-shorts PJs set.

[cgpm]

We got a set of 8 wine glasses each painted with a different flower, which might have been ok, but then they outlined the flower in black, put black polka dot all around the top part of the glass, and then painted the whole bottom in black. They were so ugly! I imagine that the gift giver spent some serious money on them at some local artsy place, but she'd never met me so why would she buy something sooooo her style? My uncle's girlfriend LOVED them, so instant b-day gift for her!

[munkii]

A family tree.

We had a wedding crasher who caused a lot of drama pre-ceremony and came back for the ceremony after she was kicked out. This woman was crazy, and, thankfully, did not cause any scenes during the ceremony. I'm kind of surprised she didn't based on the "gift" she left us.

She wrote us a letter detailing our family histories and stating the wedding should not have happened because--duh duh duh!--we're cousins! She included a separate paper with a chicken-scratch family tree she created. Of course we're not cousins, and it's kind of funny now...but it was definitely bizarre.

[meggers]

I just had my bridal shower and while I didn't get any "bad" gifts, the most random gift was a pair of scissors with a note, "I hope you'll find these as useful as I find mine." Oddly enough, we really needed a new pair of scissors so win-win! lol