At any wedding, there are a couple of gifts that have lost tags, are
signed simply "Best Wishes, Aggie" and so on.  Then there are a bunch of
gifts from people you barely know, or that the in laws barely know, and from
people whose last names you never remember, or from a neighbor you lived
next to a decade ago, or are from an n-th cousin that was invited, but
nobody knows how because nobody knew the n-th cousin existed.
 
At my brother's wedding, at least 25 presents ranging from melon ballers to
soap dishes to picture frames fit into this category.  And most of them were
from me.  All it took was about fifty dollars and half an hour in a kitchen
supply shop.
 
After they opened the third melon baller in a row, the happy couple started
to compare handwriting on the cards.  My co-workers all had had a lovely time
filling out the cards, so no two had the same greeting or handwriting.  Most
of them, I didn't even know what was on the card (other than the name...).
 
Then they compared wrapping paper and ribbons.  Sure, some were the same,
but there seem to be about 10 different patterns of wedding paper, and
only a couple weren't duplicated somewhere.  And there are always a couple
gifts wrapped in something that everybody knows is the Christmas paper that
doesn't look as Christmas-sy as the rest of the Christmas paper.
 
Then the happy couple started to compare names.  Some of the last names
had been culled from the more common surnames on the family trees of both
families up to three generations back.  The rest of the last names were
pulled out of the phone book, by picking a name that was not uncommon,
like Johnson, Schwartz, Huber, Peterson, or Taft.  Who didn't go to school
with or know someone with a name like that?  (Names like Smith or Dudley
Fudpucker were ruled out as too obvious.)  The first names were all
relatively common names.
 
And then the happy couple's parents would say something helpful like "Just
write it down; we'll figure it out later."  "Wasn't your aunt's first
husband's name XXX?"  "Grandma knew a YYY back in Clinton."
 
Of course, the *real* fun began afterwards, when they had to write
thank you notes.  How do you find an address for John Wilson if you
don't even know where he's from?
 
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