AIBU - no card?

[Inpaineveryday]

Had my wedding last weekend - several friends didn’t even write us a nice card. I’m gutted and suddenly feel very unaware/naive about those friendships. 4 of these people I would have classed as close friends. Am I reading in to this? I wouldn’t dream of turning up to a wedding without at least giving a card congratulating the couple? Isn’t that basic etiquette, let alone what you would do as the minimum for a friend? One of these friends I’m particularly gutted about as I’ve really been there when times were hard for her. Even bought her Christmas food shop and presents for her child when she had not a single penny. A decade of friendship and not even a card? I don’t even know what to think, or am I just being sensitive?

I was brought up to always give cards on special occasions but nowadays everyone seems to have varying values around this. I got married last year and not many gave us cards although most contributed to our honeymoon fund. We did have a guest book that everyone signed which is a much nicer keep sale than cards.

1000000% rude. Most families no longer want boxed gifts so I always do card with money / voucher even £20 at least!
I am quiet traditional even though I am 30. But I think that's a non brainer younhave to do something. Even an E card if you must.

But then again I love to write letters so...

OP didn't say no gifts. She didn't provide a gift list but the rest of the guests did bring presents and cards. It was just four of OP's closest friends who turned up completely empty handed.

Ive never been to a wedding where people take presents to the actual wedding. Ive never seen that. All the presents are given/ordered/sent before the actual day.

I dont know what other people's experiences are at Scottish weddings

What rude twats. Please stop all birthday cards, Christmas cards, presents, food shops, everything!

The weddings I'm going to this year and have all involved over night stays, some have needed childcare as no children allowed, money spent on an abroad stag do that DH attended, travel within the UK, one is again abroad and we will be flying to.

The amount people are expected to pay to attend other people's weddings is insane, then to throw a hissy fit because you didn't get a card. For fuck sake ,just elope and be done with it

I wonder how much they'd already spent on attending the wedding and hen do

I haven't been to a wedding for a while. We are more than a decade past the years of all the weddings. Have taken a card to all of them, including the ones where the present was an online donation but it does seem a bit silly.

If a present has been contributed online so there's nothing to attach a card to, and you aren't putting cash in it, and you are there in person to say congratulations then a card does seem fairly pointless.

It’s the height of rudeness to turn up at a wedding with no gift. The only exception would be if the guest had spent a small fortune on getting to the wedding etc.
Although I am in my 50s, and this would be unheard of from any of my friends, I am also friends with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. I don’t know of anyone who would go to a wedding and not take a gift. We would also all give cards.
If they had all given gifts but not a card, that would be more acceptable but to give nothing is so rude.
Before anyone says that some people can’t afford gifts- even a cheap bottle of wine as a token of your appreciation is better than turning up empty handed.

@popcornpower2025one did pay for a hotel room to be fair. The others got a shared taxi home. The wedding was 40 mins away from home so wouldn’t have been a cheap taxi. The hen do was early May and 2 of them attended that, the others didn’t due to work.

I don’t do cards at all. Not for any occasion. Maybe they’re the same

That’s a bit cold. I don’t think OP was being grabby at all. Card giving is obviously something that OP would do, as would I. My DD and her friends, not so much.
i would never go to a wedding or celebration without at least a card.

I wanted people at our wedding not cards or presents so have no idea who bought what, why does ot matter isn't it more important you had people around you who care about being there?

I dont understand the feeling that cards or presents are more important than people unless it is some social media thing?

@popcornpower2025then I’ll reverse that right back at you and say don’t attend as a guest if you are resentful of any costs that may come with an invitation to a wedding. Politely decline with an excuse if the person who has invited you doesn’t feel close enough to you that any costs involved with attending would bother you. There is no gun to your head as a guest! I am well aware that people feel pressure to buy an outfit etc though. We covered all food (day and night), transport from our home town, drinks all day and night, and rooms for as many as the hotel could house. Some guests paid for a taxi home or new outfit I’m sure. We minimised costs for guests as much as possible. All well known in advance too. Guests were given a save the date card a full year before our wedding… a wedding all knew was on the horizon 3 years prior to that when we got engaged. You’re telling me at some point in that 4 years they couldn’t pop a card in the trolley at the supermarket?

you can look it at this in lots of ways. I personally wouldn’t care as long as they turned up when they says they would. Most people don’t actually bother with cards as they are costly and quite a bit of effort to buy, choose and write out considering it’s something that gets binned eventually! A lot worse does happen at weddings. Stop being so precious 🙄

Do you do gifts though? And if you do - are you just writing on the wrapping to say who it's from ?

@Victoria39i don’t think it’s me being precious, if you’ve read all my other updates. I think it’s just been revealing for me. These are people whose own weddings I’ve attended, or who I’ve attended other weddings with (all of which most certainly would have cost them a lot more in time and money when we were in our poorer post-uni days) and their own pattern of behaviours has been completely different at my wedding for some reason. I am the last to marry of that makes a difference. If they never took cards or gifts to any of those weddings then I’d not really think on it, but the fact is they did. Just not for me and I can’t help but be curious why. However I know MN likes to jump on ops and assume they are the worst people with the most self-centred of intentions. I’ve known them travel abroad to another friend’s wedding with me, go on abroad hen dos, and still take them a card and gift to their wedding. The point of this post is that for my closest friends their behaviour is out of the norm so it’s been harder to explain away to myself.

YANBU at all, OP.

How do you think you’ll handle these friendships going forward?

I hardly think that the OP is being 'precious' for feeling a bit dejected and hurt that out of all the invitees, her closest friends were the only ones to attend without giving a card or a wedding gift.

OP had covered most of the costs to the guests (free hotel rooms, free bar all night, children invited so no babysitters needed) and the wedding was a 40 minute drive away so not an expensive overseas wedding.

Her friends sound rude and thoughtless to me.

As this post is demonstrating I think you get ‘card people’ and ‘not card people’.

There are some who see a card as an important social etiquette and manners thing, and failing to acknowledge an event with one is a serious short fall or snub.

There are some who see the personal interaction as the meaningful thing, and a card being for solely when that’s not possible.

@nomasI’m not really sure. It’s not worth falling out over ultimately and I certainly won’t say anything. This certainly isn’t a pattern of behaviour kind of thing. It has also been just under two weeks and it may be that they forgot and just didn’t mention they’d forgotten as might have been embarrassed. I guess I’ll just see how I feel in time and if anything is mentioned when I next see them. They’re not horrible people or at all selfish, so it wouldn’t be a malicious thing. That’s partly why I’m so stumped!

Every wedding I’ve been to in England theres a table or area you can leave cards/gifts. It’s pretty standard!

The idea that anyone actually cares about cards at all, much less could be this angsty about them is genuinely shocking to me. This has been an illuminating thread.

Anyway, I would often rock up to an event without a card. It’s not something that would occur to me. However, I’d never attend a wedding without a gift. So, the fact that these people came to your wedding and literally gave you NOTHING (card, gift, anything) seems off to me. That’s very poor manners.

Most weddings I’ve been to (including my own) have had a mix of both, I think. So, some large items ordered off the list and sent to the couple, some gifts brought and left on the gift table.

Occasionally I've brought a card to the wedding where the couple had asked for money or vouchers. More often I've posted the card and bought a gift from the list.