Wedding invitation - please give us your money (basically)

[Truestorypeeps]

Received a second wedding invitation in a row which mentions words to the affect of, we would very much appreciate money towards our honeymoon as a gift. I personally couldn't physically write this in an invitation as it just feels presumptuous and tasteless.

Maybe this last invite got my back up as this couple have been together well over ten years, already have children, earn c.150k between them, massive house and already go on countless holidays at home and abroad. They could have easily omitted such a line from the invite. I understand they don't want toasters and towels, but surely there's another way?! E.g. heading, 'wedding gifts', below - 'your presence at our wedding would be more than enough, but if you'd like to gift us something to mark this day, please give a donation to XYZ charity which is close to our hearts because of XYZ??? Owing to the fact they are bloody rolling in it.

Because I would be more comfortable with them explicitly asking for money if they were hard up and hadn't ever been on a holiday together! It's not like they are desperate to get away, they go away every year on several holidays.

Why on earth should people have to think about the cost of covering their meal at a wedding. If you can't afford a big do, have a small one.

Nobody is saying that you have to effectively 'pay' for your meal with an equivalent gift value or cash amount; but it's just a very general guideline, if you can afford it, and you want the happy couple to be net beneficiaries of your attendance.

I don't think it hurts to just bear in mind that, if your family of 5 have attended and cost them £300 - which granted they have invited you, (maybe) wanted you to be there and willingly paid - you can't expect them to see your £15 photo frame and be flooded with gratitude at how generous you've been and how much you've helped them out financially at a very expensive time.

It's a little bit like a wedding equivalent of the people who will stay with you for two weeks, have all of their meals provided by you, have you driving them around the country and then buy a chippy tea for everybody on their last night 'as a special treat for you' and expect you to be thoroughly grateful at how astonishingly munificent they are.

I think a lot of it boils down to people wanting the satisfaction of giving for themselves, rather than a genuine desire to bring happiness to the recipient. People like to centre themselves by focusing on the item that they gave you - even if it's one of 17 identical items you received and already have/won't use - rather than being content to know that, along with a few dozen other people, they added their contribution and played their part in enabling you to have a wonderful honeymoon.

Personally I would love it if people did this for kids parties, 'if you would like to give a gift, please donate max £5 towards the toy my kid I saving for'. Ah would be amazing.

Unfortunately it is frowned upon to chuck money in a toddlers card so you are left wondering the aisle of home bargains trying to guess what a 3 year old you have never met might like.

It's tacky and grabby as fuck. We have been to a few weddings recently and always give money, but have never had an invitation that actually asked for it.

Hmm, I don't know. I agree directly asking for money is distasteful in a way. But couples can't win - we asked for no presents at our wedding and ended up with a huge box of silver picture frames and "our wedding" photo albums. None of it to our taste and just a waste of money. A £10 M&S voucher would have been of more use and cheaper for the guests.

As opposed to what? Them not asking for money and you freely put some in a card anyway?

How about asking for donations to the guest’s own favourite charity then?

There's not really any way of doing charitable donations as a wedding gift that isn't at least a potential minefield.

It's ok when the guest and the couple feel the same way about the charity, and I have in fact done a donation at a couple's request before so I know it can work. But it does create potential issues, because people always have opinions about charities. Even if you avoid 'political' ones and take the widest possible definition of political, people get arsey about size, admin costs, directors salaries. People on here frequently say they won't donate to charities that pay staff whatever they think too much is.

I'm not saying it can never work, but it's clearly a delicate one. In a way that just giving cash to the couple isn't.

Some people do seem to think that couples should feel guilty at wanting to have an amazing time of their life on their very special day - when instead, like Mrs Doyle, it is deemed far more appropriate that they should 'like the misery'.

I don't mind people asking for money. In their situation I'd expect them to say they don't need any gifts - but most guests don't want to show up empty handed and asking for money is better than everyone buying them gifts they don't want. I asked for contributions to our honeymoon at my wedding - I set up a site where people could buy specific experiences if they wanted as I thought it would feel like more of a gift than just sending money, I got positive feedback about it although I suppose nobody would tell me if they hated it

With the charity thing, you could always do what they do with the blue tokens in Tesco: give people a choice of three charities, so there will hopefully be at least one that they don't find objectionable! One big medical research charity, a local animal rescue centre, a children's hospital and a sustainable community project?!

I think a lot of it boils down to people wanting the satisfaction of giving for themselves, rather than a genuine desire to bring happiness to the recipient. People like to centre themselves by focusing on the item that theygave you - even if it's one of 17 identical items you received and already have/won't use - rather than being content to know that, along with a few dozen other people, they added their contribution and played their part in enabling you to have a wonderful honeymoon.

Yep. And some people just want an excuse to buy something for someone because that's what they themselves like doing. But we have a lot of cultural baggage about presents and recipients and gratitude, that come from a time before there was so much easily available tat.

....am aware that's actually a choice of four....

As opposed to guessing whether no mention of gifts means guessing whether they:
A) actually want a physical chosen gift
B) actually subscribe to the idea I've only ever seen here that you should ring and ask them
C) actually want cash
D) actually want nothing but don't know how to phrase that
etc.

As a guest if anyone takes that tedious guessing game out of the question I'm delighted.

Personally, I just wouldn't and didn't mention gifts or money on my wedding invitations. For us, there was no expectation and it's up to the guest IF they want to do something. We weren't going to direct anyone to give us things. Everyone thinks differently though and that's fair enough. This topic seems rather polarising!

We said nothing; largely inspired by MN. People complained about it endlessly.

You can't win. It's not gracious to mention gifts or money. It's rude to not mention them, as it means the people you invite have to think about what to buy, or ask someone to get your gift list, and that's presuming everyone has free time... Saying you don't need or want anything and someone's presence is enough goes against convention.

But we have a lot of cultural baggage about presents and recipients and gratitude, that come from a time before there was so much easily available tat.

Plus it's an ideal opportunity to get rid of the tat that people gave them for their wedding/anniversary/birthday/Christmas/leaving present, that they didn't want!

Some of these sparkly photo frames in the shape of the letters of 'LOVE' have probably been doing the rounds for years - like when people play the reverse version of pass the parcel, where you have to do a forfeit if it's with you when the music stops

I think it’s tacky to ask for gifts in general, we didn’t ask anyone for anything, all we wanted was a nice quote wedding and a little celebratory meal at the pub, some people did still gift us some cash/gifts and it was all very much appreciated as we had a newborn but we didn’t expect it, weddings aren’t about gifts in my eyes.

I suspect there's more truth to this than a lot of people would care to acknowledge...

I think the only way to be completely safe is to pointedly insist to people in advance that you do not want any kind of present - and then to have a shredding machine (cash/cheques) and a heavy duty garden mulcher (physical gifts) going at the door of the reception venue, for anybody who disobeys, to show them that you mean it! If they swerve this by transferring cash to you electronically, you could report them as a suspected money launderer and have their account frozen by the authorities

I think it's tacky to be mean spirited about the idea of wedding gifts. If you can't afford to give something that's another matter (been there) but to be offended by the concept of giving someone a gift to show your goodwill as you share their celebration...that's about as tacky as it gets.

It's a weird British thing, or rather a MN thing.

They had no shame in asking for money on their invitation. I haven't written 'in envy' just started the facts about how well off they are so it's not like they needed to be so crass as to mention money on their invitations. I'm not assassinating their characters, just their choice of words on the invitation. It's been blown up by others to be more than this.

I think it’s tacky to start threads slagging off people you proclaim to like and hurling abuse at them. Way more tacky than a polite request for cash instead of a physical item if gifting. I think it’s shameful to then front up at the wedding all smiles when you’ve been on line slagging them off.

I've been to several Greek weddings where this is tradition. There was a bowl of safety pins on each table.

YABU. We're probably going to do the same in our wedding details card, not towards a honeymoon but towards work for the house we just bought.
It's common place for wedding guests to bring a gift, and makes everyone's life easier to have a quick and easy option that's actually useful to us. We certainly don't need a bunch of tacky crap that will end up in the bin, but we aren't forcing anyone to give anything at all.
Those who get into complicated calculations about the meal Vs their travel costs etc are ridiculous, no one cares and no one will know!

It's the actuality of the invitation asking for cash which is my issue. Not the concept of giving something.