Grabby birthday voucher request

[GingerSpice84]

Back story: A friend - let’s call her Emma- has a new (and very wealthy-relevant) boyfriend. He has a big birthday coming up and is having a huge party to celebrate. Emma asked my advice for how to word on the invitation that he wants to receive gift vouchers from a specific shop from his guests. I was quite shocked by this as, a) I’m not sure that you openly tell your guests what to buy, and b) the pair of them regularly and unashamedly tell us how wealthy he is.
I did suggest that it might be nicer to let people buy what they wanted but she had various reasons for not wanting this (I.e. he doesn’t drink anything apart from X, he’s already set up in his home etc). She also said that the party was costing X number of thousands of pounds (as if that justifies shamelessly requesting gift vouchers from your guests).
Is it a reasonable request or is it a bit grabby? Wouldn’t it be nicer to say, no presents please (especially as he is absolutely bundled-or so they say).
Happy to be told I’m BU and I’ll trot along to said shop and no doubt massively overspend on the vouchers in an attempt not to look tight.

Also, what if you don’t want people to make donations to charity?? Again, it would be easier and less energy to just pick up a £10 JL voucher at the till while shopping rather than:

1. deliberately going online
2. spitefully searching for a charity
3. hate-buying a donation for the person
4. printing out the donation
5. stuffing that in a card.

No wonder so many people on MN don’t have friends in real life.

I wouldn't dream of turning up to someone else's house for dinner empty-handed nevermind a party, so it would be helpful to know if someone wants a specific thing, and a voucher is super easy to buy and stick in a card rather than spending time wondering what they'd like.

Tacky to put requests on invitations, but nothing wrong with saying what you'd like if people ask, as long as it's 'you don't need to bring anything, but if you really want to, xx would be lovely'.

Tacky to put requests on invitations, but nothing wrong with saying what you'd like if people ask, as long as it's 'you don't need to bring anything, but if you really want to, xx would be lovely'

For many of us that's the whole point isn't it? If someone asks for guidance that's totally different;, but it's the host asking in the first place which seems to be the issue

But if the end result is the same what is wrong with asking at the getgo?

The dancing around/waiting for polite inquiries is just plain silly. All those inquiries have to be answered individually and a molehill gets turned into a mountain of time consuming and unnecessary discreetness.

You can put 'The pleasure of your company is all Dave asks, but if you really want to bring a gift, please consider a voucher from [Himalayan Adventure Supplies] - surely nobody's nose would be put out to see that wording in an invitation? I know I would heave a sigh of relief if I got something like that in the post whether I knew Dave well of only slightly.

I would consider it rude to get someone something they might not want or need and put them to the trouble of disposing of it, the fakery of gratitude, the effort of returning it, etc.

And I would also consider it rude and an imposition and also not fair given that they probably have better things to do with their time to contact them and put them on the spot to tell me individually and personally what they would like.