Wedding invite says “your presence is present enough” but also “we will have a wishing well”

[Sweetunicorn1]

What do you think, my sisters wedding invite says your presence is present enough to us but also if you want to make a contribution there will be a wishing well. Personally, I hate the wishing well thing and don’t think you should put you hand out for people to ‘contribute’ to your wedding. People who want to give you a cash gift (like grandparents and parents) will do so without a wishing well. Also, I just think it seems disingenuous to say “your presence is present enough” but then in the next breath that there’s a wishing well. Pick a lane.

I don’t think they are, we go to a lot of weddings and it’s on about 50% of the invitations we’ve received.

But that's exactly what it means! Why quibble about the wording?

None of this matters. Seriously, move on.

They are just trying to say 'don't feel you need to give us a gift, we just want you to come to celebrate with us but if you want to give us cash or a cheque, you can do it at the wedding'

The basic point about we've got enough stuff already so don't want a wedding list and would prefer £ if you want to give anything is fair enough these days when unlike in the past couples are rarely furnishing a home from scratch.

It is very difficult to word something that has a request for money at its heart in a pleasant or elegant way because asking for money is never pleasant or elegant.

They've had an attempt at trying to make less bad and not done a great job but it is better than saying 'give us dosh if you want to'.

I agree that your reaction to this suggests you don't really have a good relationship with your sister as it's obviously pressed on a nerve. This warrants no more than 1 second thought about whether you want to give a gift or not. Most people would do because its a wedding!

If you don’t want to give them money then don’t, that’s fine.
YABU to be bothered enough

by this to make a post about it on Mumsnet.

It honestly sounds like you just don't like your sister and need to complain about her.

I think it’s okay to say ‘your presence is our presents, however if you would like to contribute this is our honey moon fund’. What the fuck do I care, I don’t contribute more if someone does that, they just don’t receive some bollocks from their JL wedding list.

Chuck a couple of coins in?

That is very obvious. Since you have nothing better to do than create a thread where you hoped people would join you in mocking her wedding invites.

If they’re having a wishing well they won’t be expecting people to give much, presumably it is mainly as an instagrammable thing for the photos and the fun element but it’s not like most people are going to throw much in. Even if people are throwing in pound coins instead of pennies I can’t imagine anyone throwing in more than £10 to £20 worth, it’s not like having to give a substantial gift or amount of money. The bride and groom also won’t know how much anyone has thrown in when the collect up all the loose change so it’s hardly a stand in for presents, presumably people who would want to gift a substantial gift will still do so though.

We stated no gifts, but we would have a donation point for the local food bank, we collected 460kg of food! We did get champagne, a bit of money but it really wasn’t expected

The thing is, if you don’t mention it at all you just get everyone phoning you asking what you want! Ours was 16 years ago now so can’t remember the exact working, but we put something along the lines of ‘no gifts please’ to avoid people worrying about what to buy or contacting us asking what we wanted.

I had a couple come and give nothing at my wedding. Also heard from others the same.

Speak for yourself! I feel perfectly comfortable giving nothing.

We specified ’no gifts’ but everyone gave something!

I don't see the issue - there's no pressure/compulsion to give a gift but if you do want to give something there is the option.

I think of it is a blanket, simple advice please don't give at all, that is not so bad as effectively saying "If you are going to give, it can only be what we direct you to give."

Really don’t understand the hate for this type of thing on MN - every single wedding I’ve been to has had this or a version of it on the invite.

I would sooo much rather give some money toward a honeymoon than spend the same amount of money on a present that they won’t use. Makes life so much easier

YABU
This way people don’t feel obligated to bring a gift if they cannot afford to or simply don’t wish to.

It leaves it up to free will if someone wants to chuck some cash on the well or not and takes away the awkward ‘how much shall
we put in the card?’ conversation I seem to have every wedding 😂

We did not want presents or money. There was no mention of it on our invites.

We then had to double back and put a list together as our parents on both sides and ourselves were inundated with questions asking had we missed the wedding list link from the invite or our bank details to send us some cash.

You can’t win either way. People also gave us lots of cash in cards on the day.

It was really lovely in the end but not what we had even started out wanting at all.

I read that to mean: you're not obliged to buy us anything but if you want to/can afford to .......(But don't have to)
I think that's fair enough

It's to ensure people who can't afford to give feel like it's okay not to (and that you'd much rather they attend than feel prohibited by the expense), but also to stop people who want to and can afford to get you a gift getting something random you don't really want or need. It just covers all the bases!

Oh and we put out a collection tin for a local charity, we donated the money it would have cost for Table Favours to the charity instead.

The sods filled the tin as well with cash 😂

I don’t like the twee beating about the bush wording but I would take that to mean we don’t want presents but if you wish to gift something then gift money.

If I was attending a whole day wedding I wouldn’t want to turn up empty handed so would bring cash in a card.

Perhaps they know some guests haven’t spare cash but they want them to feel able to come and celebrate but also acknowledge that some can and want to give a gift. I don’t think you should condem them for trying to be inclusive.