Giving a too expensive wedding gift - embarrassing

[AlbaAlba]

Gift etiquette question.

DH is from a very well-off upper class family, and is a high earner. When we go to his friend/family wedding we give gifts of several hundred pounds (and received similar). When it is a wedding on my much more modest side we find it really hard to agree on an appropriate sum.

He feels we can afford it, and should give them the same as his friends. I feel that that could be awkward when I know that friends are not well off and gave us a much smaller sum (think £20-30).

I just don't want to embarrass them or make them feel awkward. Giving gifts of 10x + more than you receive feels like it could be viewed as anything from showing off our greater spending power to really insensitive. I don't want them to feel they have to be massively grateful or anything, or worse, feel embarrassed that they gave a much smaller gift.

I think if we were in our 40s/50s giving gifts to nephews etc, it would feel ok, but when they're the same age/stage of life, it's awkward.

Sometimes DH wins the argument, sometimes I get a compromise. A £30 gift seems insufficient when we can easily afford more, and I'd like them to have something nice, so I aim for around the £100-£150 mark. Sometimes this clearly flusters people, so I think maybe it's still too much. DH thinks we're being stingy.

WWYD / AIBU or is DH to insist?

£100 sounds about right. We are not massively high earners (around 80k between us) and we would give around £50 for friends, £100 for family. Most of our friends and family earning similar or less.

Don't make people feel uncomfortable, it's not right. They'll (wrongly) think they owe you. Give a lovely, thoughtful, appropriate gift. It doesn't have to be expensive.

In my household we generally give £50 if it's an evening invite, £100 if it's a couple we are both friends with and for a close family member of which we always try and buy something - so the wedding dress (sister) cake or photographer or something. It's tricky I have no idea if what the etiquette is!

Ahh I'm a povvo and if I had friends who were loaded I'd be thrilled if they bought me something lovely and expensive. As long as they know you can afford it it's not really a big deal.

Agree with life

We have been at the receiving end of gifts/treats from more well off relatives at the same stage of life. It is embarrassing not to be able to do the same back and has in the past led to us spending what we can't afford to save face.

Agree with life

We have been at the receiving end of gifts/treats from more well off relatives at the same stage of life. It is embarrassing not to be able to do the same back and has in the past led to us spending what we can't afford to save face.

O/T When you say 'upper class' - do you mean Downton-Abbey-like ?

You are correct OP.

It's good manners to make each gift appropriate to the situation, in all the ways you've said.

I guess it depends on the friend. If I was your friend, I wouldn't feel embarrassed at receiving an expensive gift if I knew you could afford it and that it gave you great pleasure to give it to me.

I think you just have to give an appropriate gift - based on the wedding list/kind of thing the bride and groom would like.

You can get round the problem by buying something which is difficult to value. One of my favourite wedding presents was a lovely fruit bowl. It could have cost anything from £20 - £200 (honestly impossible to say because it's unbranded/from another country) - what it cost is not important.

£20-£30 is a bit cheap IMO if you are financially comfortable.

If you've got the money and feel generous why not give an expensive gift for a wedding. Can't see anything wrong with this.

Giving gifts of 10x + more than you receive feels like it could be viewed as anything from showing off our greater spending power to really insensitive

Really? Not just really generous?

When my DD got married I was baffled at the lack of correlation between wealth and status of guests and their relative generosity, I noticed it more among my older generation, a wide fluctuation between £30-£250.

I don't think DD and SIL felt embarrassed at all by the super-generous gifts they received, just very grateful and touched at the generosity. Her sister's American in laws were invited but couldn't come and picked just about the most expensive thing off the list, maybe the etiquette is different over there or maybe they are just generous.

Other young couples who had to travel to get here often gave a £10 gift and I don't think they'd have even noticed if some people gave them nothing.

But generally, I agree with you, you don't want to be ostentatious. I generally go for £80-£100 unless it's a Godchild or really close.

I understand what OP is saying - we had one guest wait till late in the day to order his gift from the wedding list - he basically bought what was remaining and added £500 in vouchers - we were shocked and it was way more than was needed but still lovely. But I understand that an expensive gift can be intimidating if it is too much and it is a difficult thing to get right - it does depend on the event but you can afford to be generous so I would be but maybe not to the extremes of his family - so for a couple starting out in life £1000 might be half the cost of the low key wedding, but a gift and a gift of money (if you don't mind doing that) might be worth considering for them

Bonkers Had to go and google it as I've never watched. Yes, aristo background. If you're thinking Jane Austen adaptations it's smaller than Pemberley - more like Netherfield!

We live an outwardly much more modest life but have quite a lot of hidden advantages/assets.

EnidBlyton so many of them have lived together ages so don't want house stuff and so it's off the list so still quite obvious, cases of champagne, or no list at all - in which case cash/honeymoon contribution, so the monetary value becomes really obvious.

I have been giving a gift subscription to Hotel Chocolat and it has been proving popular!
It is £60 to £120 depending on the length of the subscription.
I would still give that to a very rich couple, I think!

£50 for a family wedding is the bare minimum in my circle, whether you're rich or not. Many of my afamily members saved for a year beforehand to give me cash for my wedding; I hated it but it would have been rude not to accept. When their kids got married my parents returned the gift.

I think your point about equality is correct. I know people don't give to receive, but giving should be proportional to what the other person would give you because most normal people will try to return a gift of equal value.

My now ex-husband and I were given a very generous monetary gift when we got married from one of his work colleagues. It was very excessive. We barely saw this man socially and then he moved away and we saw him even less. He was lovely but awkward socially so clearly he value the friendship more than we did. What is now really awkward is that after my divorce he continues to send Christmas cards to all of the family. I don't have his address and haven't been able to contact him and clearly my ex doesn't give a stuff so hasn't contacted his old friend. We used the money for a worthy purpose. Everytime I use his gift I remember him but with this awkward cloud. Such a shame.

I'd spend the same. To do otherwise seems mean somehow and a little patronising.

If I was your relative, I'd be very pleased.

Chewbacca I agree - and I wouldn't give a gift of that value because it's unfair when we have so much, it's more where do we pitch it around the £100 mark? That's where I feel psychologically comfortable that it's not stingy, but not so generous as to make most people uncomfortable, but wanted to check. Or should it really be hundreds, as DH is adamant - but then his understanding of MC and WC attitudes is notoriously limited? Then again, some reactions from recipients have made me think even £100 was too much. Almost like hitting £100 passing through an invisible line.

Like the idea of gift + cash as then it doesn't seem so overwhelming or quite so 'in your face'.

Riding, yes one hopes that that is how people take it! However, I know for a fact that some people find this sort of disparity awkward, and it's not a nice gift if it embarrasses people or makes them feel they should have matched it. Worse they might feel they have to spend more than they can afford on, say, your DC presents, to match it.

Does it make it more awkward because we live quite modestly, so many friends and some family aren't really aware of our situation so a large gift is a surprise and they're not sure how to take it? Maybe if we flashed cash everywhere people would just assume we were being nice and generous.

I wouldn't think it would be embarrassing at all, just a kind gesture.
£100 is our baseline, but more for close friends/family.
I couldn't ever see it as being ostentatious, and if people ask for cash gifts, they're going to get cash gifts in a range of values.
Some people get quite strange about giving money at weddings, I see lots of "second wedding for both of them, both own their own houses, have grown up children and several foreign holidays every year," as though that somehow means their friends shouldn't give them monetary gifts.
Just give what you want without worrying about judgement - I doubt anyone judges!

£20-30 is cheap if you are very well off and would normally give more to others.

While a very expensive gift might make some uncomfortable, a cheap gift would some me feel you just didn't value our friendship enough to spend money on it like you did with you real rich friends. I wouldn't necessarily feel I had to give you a gift like for like in price terms, but like for like in terms of our relative incomes as a sign of our friendship.

The right answer is probably somewhere between your and your DH's figure.

I don't get the awkward thing at all to be honest. I wouldn't feel awkward or embarrassed by someone giving us a really expensive gift if they can afford it. And if we were that well off, I would give an expensive gift as well. People who view it as awkward are maybe a little sensitive about it?? It's a very British thing to worry about the etiquette around this sort of thing. DHs family are Irish and they are far more laid back about this sort of thing... it's a more 'if you've got it, give it and if you need it, take it' sort of attitude towards money.

Jaxhog I know what you mean, but the two circles don't overlap, so my side wouldn't have any clue about the value of gifting that goes on with his side. Therefore a generous gift can be a surprise to them, and we can't exactly send a note saying 'this is how much we give the other lot'.

It does depend a lot on the gift. A case or half case of champagne seems a lovely generous gift while some equivalently valuable object could seem much more flashy. I have no idea why though, maybe because you drink it? If off a registry I'd just think generous tbh but trickier when friends are already set up... we do approx £100 for wedding gifts.