Are Wedding Gifts Outdated?

So, how's wedding season going for you? Did you get luck this year and not have to go to any? Or are all your weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day eaten up by cousins, chicken dances and people you don't know?

Oh, and gifts. CBS News reported that this year guests will spend more than $150 on average for a wedding gift. Is that too much or not enough? Or are gifts even necessary?

On Slate.com Matthew Yglesias asks that very question. Our current wedding gift tradition comes form a time when most people getting married were starting out in life. They had nothing. That didn't have a house or household goods. People were going from their parents' house to their marriage house.

Today that is more often not the case.

Today’s married couples are considerably older and more established than those of yesteryear. Like the majority of couples these days, my wife and I were already living together by the time we got married. To move in together, we’d had to merge two stockpiles of existing consumer goods, with many possessions offloaded to her younger sister. And of course we were already pretty old—30 and 28—which is about typical these days. Back in 1960, the average age at first marriage was 22 for men and 20 for women. We more or less had the stuff we needed. - Matthew Yglesias Slate.com

I agree. In our modren would maybe it would be better to insted give a donation to a down payment fund or to a fund to pay off student debt? Or just do away with the practice all together and enjoy the celebration? What do you think?