A wedding one! I have a real wedding one of my very own!

[Hullygully]

So we are a very large extended family but all close and get on well and see each other differing amounts. But everyone is invited to any "big" event, iyswim.

My third cousin who is lovely is getting married to someone who I think has been married before but can't remember, but they are both older and established, and we (The Family) have been invited to a celebratory lunch and cakes at her mother's house. Very nice. But they will already have got married, we none of us know why and don't like to ask (probs money).

I asked the mother (second cousin) what they would like for a wedding gift and they want donations to their honeymoon.

Is this normal?

I sort of don't mind, it just seems a bit odd. And how much does one give?

Wow StarBall chill the fuck out! Fuck me what an over reaction.

Hully please don't listen to the idiotic reactions.

give them a tenner. I too am sick of entitled wedding posters, shut the fuck up. HTH

My family gave us a holiday as our wedding present. 4 weeks of sunshine in rural France - it was blissful. It was our favourite present by MILES.

Thankfully I can say that with a clear conscience because we most definitely didn't ask for it. Also my family all came along too - they wouldn't have had that much fun if they'd bought us towels. So it worked out well for everyone.

Give them some cash inside a balloon filled with thousands of those hole punch circles I'm sure you can do it without helium.

I have TWO weddings to go to next year, so shall look forward to this new fangled notion.

Personally, Hully, I'm of the view that if I'm giving someone a gift I would like it to be something that they want, rather than something that gets stuffed away in the back of a cupboard as an encumbrance. So if they want money, I'd be happy to give that, with a smile.

(PS looking very good for 103!)

The point is she wasn't invited to the wedding.
Unless she had a tiny do with just close family/friends and this is the reception for those they couldn't afford to invite.

Bet you asked for cash starball.

Bet you had the little poem and everything.

THE LORD TELLS ME YOU ARE REMOVED;
I WON'T STUMP UP SO THAT YOU CAN DO THE RUDE;
IN BARBADOS.

I might try that Jim

Ive been to a LOT of weddings this year (8 weddings, 1 more to go!) And pretty normal :) Last one of the year next week. I am exhausted though and my poor liver!

I haven't been to a wedding for donkey's years. I am slightly alarmed to think that whenever I next eventually go to a wedding it will be either as the mother of the groom, or as someone's slightly embarrassing great aunt with some comfy shoes in her handbag, getting the dancing all wrong.

Hello Hully.

If the bride's mother (BM) is your mother's first cousin, then BM is your first cousin once removed.

And her daughter (the bride) is your second cousin.

If the bride has children, they are your second cousins once removed. These possible children are also the third cousins of your own children.

All clear?

I'm happy to buy people something they want for a present at any present-giving occasion.

Some friends are due to get married soon and have asked for donations to their honeymoon. Neither earns much, they've got everything they need in the house because they're good at budgeting, they've got kids who eat any spare money that there is, and they've never had a holiday together. They want a few days away in the UK with the littlest child, and they wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. Why shouldn't they have a luxury they'll enjoy, rather than a pile of boring towels?

oh that sounds marvellous and probably accurate Priness - thank you.

What we need now is a spreadsheet/venn diagram type thing showing a sliding scale of the appropriate remuneration, with an equation for factoring in that Hully never actually got invited to the wedding and is merely a cash cow who can be flattered, and bought with cake.

yep, Princess has it.

and ffs, ask about the wedding, then report back here

oh thank you fliffy dear

I can't ask about the wedding

it wouldn't be the thing

I could be bought with cake,
But you are on the make,

So no.

Haven't been to a wedding myself since about 1925, so no idea what's de rigueur these days. But if your cousin is lovely, and your family are all good mates, then go and enjoy the lunch and the cake and the fizzy stuff. Just slip them a few quid in a card - money was mentioned only because you asked about a gift, wasn't it? So that's quite different from couples making financial 'demands'.

Though I'm sad you didn't get one of those very nice poems that one reads about on Mumsnet...

"I haven't been t a wedding for a gazillion years, I'm out of the kulcher."

Um ...you're not going to a wedding now! Don't give the buggers any money for a wedding that you weren't even invited to, the cheeky sods.

Talkative Jim 's poem was a work of fucking genius! Seriously though, if you can't even mention the wedding, then you certainly can't give a gift about it - you don't want to embarrass them (especially not if it's going to cost you fifty quid).

Princess stop being so bloody reasonable and sensible. You are spoiling our fun.

Do you think they eloped? I don't think you get presents if you elope.

Subliminal - I took comfy shoes and got the dancing all wrong as the bride

Sorry, Subliminal, I'll shut up now.