I guess, in a truly bridezilla scenario, questions would have been asked by mother/ mother-in-law and value and style of the gift ( money or item) would have been illicited in advance.
It seems clear, that, in recent years, guests are seen as necessary players at the feast, who are essentially expected to be paying for their own portion of the event, via their gift. It's like a balancing act: plenty guests can bring in super-dooper cash injections, but too many who don't pay up well, bounce an annuated bill on the happy couple. This is where you get the mind-boggling posts on MN e.g, by one poster saying she got a thank you letter from a junior work colleague suggesting she might like to supplement the sum of cash in the envelope, as it didn't quite do justice to the calibre of the experience.
One way of playing off the balancing act needed, is to have all the guests at the wedding - rather than binning some off, into the evening disco - but give them an evening-do size budget for their grub, to reflect the fact that they didn't 'buy' the full experience.
The only conclusion I can come to is that if we are even talking about whether the gold, silver, bronze idea can be good, weddings in 2022 are just horrendous! Anything would be better than all this stretching to something you can barely afford and then coyly expecting all the guests to cover the cost for the privilege of getting a few memories - like they really care about 'your' nuptial. Commitment Curry, eloping with two witnesses - anything sounds preferable to modern marriage.