Roxanne Sorooshian on nuptial gifts

It was a wedding march with a difference. Last week, dozens of angry brides donned their frocks and, armed with some seriously frightening bouquets, took to the streets of London in protest over a wedding gift company that had gone bust.

Wrapit, an online service specialising in the procurement of the perfect pressies for happy hitching couples, went under - taking with it thousands of Jamie Oliver plates and a mountain of Egyptian cotton bath sheets. You could hear the crash of broken dreams reverberate throughout the land. Fortunately, toasters and irons were spared the horror. Such humble items do not figure highly on such nuptial lists.

As the brides stamped their pretty, satin-clad feet, I must confess that I found it hard to sympathise.

Wedding lists are, after all, the height of bad manners. The quid pro quo of "we'll deign to invite you to our Big Day, but you've got to buy X, Y or Z - here's the list" has always struck me as a little arrogant and rather rude. And I say this as one who unwrapped three woks in a row on return from honeymoon.

Fourteen years down the line, we are still on wok number two, with wok three waiting in the wings (well, the loft) for its turn to embrace some bean sprouts.

Admittedly, it lurks in the loft along with a slow cooker (14 years is one very slow cooker) and a punch bowl with matching glasses that I'm sure will come into its own when we eventually have that garden party.

But experience has not changed my aversion for the wedding list. These gifts, however well used, were given in a spirit of generosity and were chosen with thought. Each wedding present we received is imbued with the personality of the donor. Each brings memories, many of people no longer with us. I would not swap my slow cooker for all the Jamie Oliver tea sets in China.

And anyway - the gifts are just a happy bonus. The whole point of inviting folk to your wedding is to share an important step in your life with the people whose company you value. Plus Great Aunt Senga. It's the bride and bridegroom who should feel honoured, not the guests (many of whom might possibly have had better things to do of an afternoon than hang around making small talk with Great Aunt Senga and waiting for the photies to finally finish).

Maybe the Wrapit debacle is just another sign of our acquisitve times; another symptom of our consumer slavery. If we're realistic, most of these newlyweds will have set up home together long ago and have a fully kitted-out lifestyle. It's not just any old bed set they'll be grateful for - we'll have the designer ensemble in cerise to match the wallpaper, thank you very much.

There is a certain schadenfreude in the fact that the credit crunch - fuelled by society's incontinence with plastic and the insatiable urge to spend virtual cash - brings down a company that is the very emblem of our want-that-one existence.

Of course, I feel sorry for the guests who played the game and ticked the boxes. Many will feel they must "do the right thing", "keep up appearances" and buy replacement presents.

I recommend a slow cooker for the bride who has everything except her dream wedding gifts. Then she can stew at her leisure.