Dowry and marriage.

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I was just reading a post by one of my indian friends here about love marriage and arranged marriage. This led me to remember about one of my indian friends from the old mylot. At the time, he was arranging the marriage of one of his granddaughters and told me that the girl had a good dowry yet he was happy with the groom´s family because they did not seem to center their interest in the money and jewels the girl brought. In my culture there is no such thing as a dowry although family usually helps the newlyweds with some money or utensils they might need to begin their married life. Lately, it is used here to place a marriage list of presents at a big store. The store is in charge of sending the invitations and tells the marriage guests that the list can be seen at their store. This is not an imposition, but the guests can buy anything and the newlyweds can change all their gifts later for only big thing such as a fridge or even a honeymoon. How do you do it in your culture? Those of you who use the dowry system also have marriage presents?