h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm getting married in 5 weeks. We set up our list thinking that the only people who were likely to buy gifts were our day guests (immediate family and close friends, about 40 people). We have lived together for 3 years and have most of the things we need, our list consists of a few extras and a lot of things that are 'nicer' than we have at the moment (and obviously more expensive!)

The problem is, a work colleague who I have invited to the evening reception has just asked whether we have a list. There aren't a lot of small things and I'm really worried it looks greedy - but we just weren't expecting presents from evening guests!

It's just never that simple though...

Bit of a cock-up at our wedding. We had the usual problem of a small house that was already brimming with stuff, so (on the advice of a friend who had already done so) we instructed everyone not to buy any presents at all.

This tactic seemed to be downright offensive to most of the relations, who were having none of it. Plan B was to ask for Argos vouchers, which didn't go down too well either.

In the end we ended up with a mixture of vouchers, towels, glasses and two DVD players,which wasn't too bad. However, after all the trouble I would defintely recommend doing a proper wedding list, but with many more items than there are guests. It may seem slightly vulgar but it's the convention so you minimise the risk of offending people.

Oh, and make sure you get someone to make a list of the presents *before* they get removed from the gift table - we lost several labels which put us in a rather embarrassing position when writing thank-yous.