
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 1, 1990                   TAG: 9006280050
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: EX8   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: SUZANNE SCHLOSBERG LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

SOMETHING OLD, NEW - AND OFTEN TACKY

The box had silver wrapping, white ribbon and a sticker from an expensive store in Beverly Hills. Inside, Sherrie Fisher thought, was a classy wedding gift - a china dish, perhaps, or a glass bowl.

It was a silver-plated doughnut holder.

"It was very bizarre, to say the least," said Fisher, who got married in April. "I just tossed it aside."

Despite the best intentions of gift givers, wedding presents often end up in the attic or back in the store they came from.

Newlyweds dislike about one in five gifts they receive, according to a new survey by MasterCard, but some local newlyweds say it's much worse than that.

"I returned at least 75 percent," Fisher said. Some of the gifts were duplicates, some were useless, and others didn't match her belongings.

Not only did she spend many hours returning gifts, Fisher said, but she also had to struggle with some creative thank-you notes.

"It's hard to be so thankful for something that you just don't know what to do with," she said.

Sandy Lee, who also married in April, recommends buying registered gifts.

"I used to think it was really tacky," she said. "But when you register, you do yourself and your guests a big favor. This way you get to receive something you really wanted, and it won't hide in the back of a closet, or wherever dead gifts go."

According to the MasterCard survey of 334 adults, 41 percent of disliked gifts end up in an attic or closet, 28 percent are exchanged for different merchandise, and 16 percent are returned to the store for money.

Another 4 percent are discarded, the study found, and 16 percent are given away as gifts.

Lee received a rejected picture frame from a couple who apparently had received it for their own wedding. Unbeknownst to the gift givers, the frame came with a note from the original givers.

"That was really tacky," Lee said. "I would never give away a gift that I didn't like."

Lee said the gifts she liked best - apart from cash - were personalized items such as monogrammed picture frames or photo albums.

by CNB