The Ultimate in Convenience

When has convenience gone too far? Maybe never. Israeli's, usually an unsentimental and practical bunch, and certainly technically savvy, have come up with the ulitmate in convenience for the harried wedding guest. Rushing from work to the wedding? Forgot to get a gift - or even a card? No problem, according to this article from Reuters.

Guests at an Israeli wedding hall can now insert a credit card into a machine at its entrance, tap in a sum and leave a gift for the bride and groom.

"It's new in Israel and the world," Aya Alon Kaufman of the Gan Oranim
hall in Tel Aviv said on Israel's Channel 10. "It's very convenient ... guests
can give a gift even if they forget their checkbooks."

She said couples pay NIS 500 ($155) to rent the device, which resembles an automated teller machine, and the recorded funds are transferred into their bank account the next day.

The machine prints out a "deposit" slip with the guest's name, which can be put into an envelope along with a congratulatory note and inserted into a slot in the device for the couple to retrieve.

Kol Sasson - indeed!