Wedding gift. What would you do?

[SunnyPlumOrca]

Need your thoughts.
We have been invited to a wedding but instead of giving a gift the bride and groom have asked for donations to their honeymoon.
We have never heard of this before and it strikes us as being very rude.
A wedding gift is usually a gift to help in the set up of their new life together, not to help go on holiday.
The wedding itself sounds as if it is a lavish affair and is going to be costly anyway for guests.
Am I being unreasonable to give them a gift that I want to give

I have been married 30 years. We had a gift list at a couple of stores.

Guests either bought from list or did their own thing. Got some treat awful gifts that were definitely not on the list.

We were not living together. However I had my own flat so had a set up home already. This narrowed the list . Bad move. Appliances break and need replacing. Within weeks of marriage I had to replace the iron, the vacuum cleaner and the kettle. All would have been great gift ideas but were not on the list because I already had them. Very short sighted of me.

OP do what you want to do. The couple can request money but it’s not s summons. Same as 30 years ago , the couple can request guests use the list but wasn’t compulsory.

Here we go another boring wedding post. FFS OP have you been living on the moon or are you in your90s to have never ever heard of this before now?

Or are you just being deliberately goady to whip the MN wedding haters into a Saturday morning frenzy?

I’ll reword your question - do you think I’m unreasonable for ignoring a fair request and doing what I think is best?

YES YABU! We asked for no gifts but optional honeymoon donations for our wedding. We live together, have everything we need and don’t need more landfill material. Some guests donated, some didn’t and I didn’t judge anyone who didn’t - life is expensive and not everyone is able to. This thing about asking for money being rude is outdated and maybe weirdly British too, I’m not sure.

It’s been standard for at least 20 years. Maybe longer but I’m too young to know about longer ago than that.

You can give whatevwe gift you want but depending on what it is there is a good chance it will end up in the charity shop! But it is odd to give an unwanted gift.

Go on what’s the gift?

Thanks for your reply. This is exactly what I was thinking

This attitude never makes sense to me. They can’t ask for help with having a lovely honeymoon because that’s grabby. However, if they give you a long list of brand/colour specific items they want and have picked for themselves from John Lewis?

Tactful and considerate. Old fashioned and well mannered. Not at all weirdly grabby or presumptive.

To add - if you think it’s weird adding to honeymoon funds but not getting a gift off a registry because they’ll know how much money you gifted… I’ve got news for you! They know exactly how much the toaster off the registry cost.

So it’s a stupid reverse?

My initial feeling is that it's rude but I can't articulate why. Perhaps because my parents always said it was crass and vulgar to ask for money (though curiously they didn't feel the same way about being asked for gift vouchers which is barely any different). So I'd get over myself and give them what I would have spent on a gift.

I'm trying to declutter and buy/accumulate less "stuff" and i think a lot of people are thinking this way. So much goes to waste. Spending money on experiences is a good way forward.

Don't get people a gift that are expressly asked you not to! Asking for money is not totally new. My first wedding was nearly 40 years ago and we asked for money as we were heading off on a year's travelling later that year. Everyone knew that was our plan. We'd been living together and had plenty of household stuff, which we were going to be putting in storage.

The number of people who gave us unwanted stuff, which we would have to pay to store, was just astonishing. From a silver teaset, to ugly vases and fancy glasses to a bloody giant wok. We sold all of it before we left. (One of my cherished memories of my now long-gone grandfather is when I asked if we could store the giant wok at his house and his reply was "fuck the wok!").

Requesting a financial gift at a wedding is pretty much standard in today’s world.

I can’t actually remember the last wedding I went to where they didn’t request a financial gift.

Long gone are the days of people waiting until they’re married to move in together. There’s just no need for people to be getting a toaster or cutlery set as a wedding gift.

We always give money, it's very normal.

@arcticpandas no idea who this is aimed at as it is an overwhelming YABU to something that has been very normal for as long as I’ve been attending weddings (20 or so years). Other than money towards a honeymoon, I went to a wedding with a gift registry in my early 20s and a couple of friends and I all clubbed together to get one of the ‘big ticket items’. It’s the same principle. Get the couple something they would like or can 100% use. Much better then buying something that may get thrown away or will just sit gathering dust or unappreciated.

Oh it’s a reverse! How annoying @SunnyPlumOrca

Just don’t give them anything if you don’t want to. I think it’s rude to ask for anything, gifts or money - gifting should be optional at the discretion of the giver. I don’t do wedding gifts or money, and I couldn’t give a monkey’s what anyone might think about that.

We were in our 30s when we got married - 1st marriage for both but we already had our own homes so had 2 of everything we would need! We def didnt need more stuff.

We said no gifts but people did tend to give John Lewis vouchers or cash. Was great, we used them to buy our first pram as dd was born just before our 1st anniversary!

Cash is very common now. Rule of thumb used in our area is only give what you can afford, but if you can manage a bit more then typically match what the bride and groom will have spent including you in the day, e.g. meal, drinks etc.

Money towards the honeymoon is brilliant. It's easy, you know it's what they want, totally takes any stress out of choosing anything. It's an absolute bonus to me if a wedding invitation includes this

Requesting donations towards a honeymoon is grabby. Pay for your own honeymoon!

So requesting money is grabby but a gift list requesting presents isn't? It makes no sense...

Normal but in my opinion in bad taste.

Back in 2018 my niece (and goddaughter) and her now husband asked for contributions to their honeymoon. As they had already been together for about 10 years, had already bought a house and weren't having a silly wedding, I was happy to give them a wedding present for their honeymoon.
I gave the same amount to her brother, later in the year, but this was a wedding present and not a contribution to a honeymoon.
By contrast, their younger sister got married last year. I haven't given her a present as the invitation was to some kind of weird party that was not a legal wedding and would have cost me around GBP 2500 to attend, so I didn't.
I feel bad about this, but the modus operandi just did not work for me.
Should add that I will be leaving her rather nice jewellery in my will, plus the option on a Bechstein.

Are you unreasonable to give a gift you want to give rather than one they want to receive? I suppose it depends on your idea of what the point is of giving gifts?

Very very normal nowadays. Most couples will already be living together and set up and don’t want a load of extra junk to have to store, so the money goes to something useful.
However, with a lot of weddings these days that end up costing so much to attend, I do think couples should say “gifts not required” when it costs hundreds (or even thousands) for them to attend anyway.

Donations for the honeymoon?

Gift them some lube, a vibrating cock ring and be done with it.

If a couple was not living together and were getting married from home, I have chosen what I could afford from a guest list. With couples who’ve lived together for years requesting cash towards their honeymoon, nope