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.

It’s pretty clear to me, it means “we don’t want gifts, but if you really don’t want to turn up empty handed then please bring a cash gift not a boxed gift”.

So you can choose, cash gift or no gift - both acceptable.

If there was no wishing well suggestion you can bet your bottom dollar someone will turn up with some sort of household related gift that the couple have to feel guilty about binning, even after a request for no gifts.

You think they should give any money given to them when they asked for no presents to charity...

God this place is batshit at times.

No I think what they mean is they would ask for a charity donation instead. So I've been to weddings when the couple state no gifts but suggested a charity to donate to as an alternative.

How is that any different to what the ops sister has said though? We don't want gifts but if you want to give please do this? Or is it considered more acceptable because it's for a charity.

It might be slightly twee wording but they’re simply saying you have a choice. I’ve been to several weddings with wishing wells and I was grateful for wording like this so I knew there would be somewhere to pop my envelope when I got to the wedding. Otherwise I’d have the awkward task of asking how I make a contribution. A lot of people make contributions to weddings, especially for people they’re close to, why’s this a big deal? They’ve kindly also given you the option to opt out. Christ it’s better than being given an expensive wedding list. I think you’re being really unreasonable. Maybe you just don’t want to give them a gift but don’t want to look bad?

I didn't say it was different I was just pointing out what that particular poster had meant.

But if they just say "there'll be a wishing well" it sounds like a gift is required/expected. We had a list for anyone who wanted to buy but also made it as clear as we could that it wasn't necessary. Not everyone bought a gift.

Appreciate the clarity but actually I think saying we don't want gifts but instead you could make a donation to this charity would mean even more guests felt obligated.

The option of no gifts or cash in the card seems in my opinion the least fuss. If people ask for money for charity it would be much harder for people to feel they could give no gift at all

You're getting a bashing in these comments, OP, but the voting's pretty evenly split and currently the majority are on your side. So am I. If I got that invitation, I would not think the couple genuinely didn't want anything, I'd think they wanted money. If they genuinely didn't want anything, far better to say something like, 'Any presents, including money, will be returned to the giver. If you feel you must give something, we'd love a handwritten message from you to help us remember our day.'

But they don't genuinely not want anything. They want cash.

Well no one knows if you donated to said charity or not so quite the opposite- if you didn't want to donate you wouldn't.

However so as not to derail the thread with talk of charity options OP I totally agree. It's cringe.

It’s tricky - lots of people genuinely don’t want anything, but guests want to give.

When I got married 20+ years ago we didn’t have a wedding list. In the run up to the wedding my mother was inundated with requests about what to buy us, people would not take nothing for an answer.

in the end we put together a small list at Heals and my close friends clubbed together and bought us a fab piece of modern art that still hangs on our wall. As a guest it’s hard to go anywhere empty handed.

I went to my friends daughters wedding - the invite said 'we don't want gifts.' It was the days when you might put a cheque in a card. The card got lost (from the table set out especially for gifts). Two weeks later I was phoned by the girls mum to check if we had sent money so (we could send it again) she could write us a 'thank you' card. When people get married, especially if it is a biggish party they never mean 'we dont want gifts'.

Perhaps they feel the first part makes it seem less grabby . Better than saying " There'll be a bucket for cash at the door. Please fill it"

Poor sister can’t even win. Sure everyone realises that means, don’t worry if you don’t want to contribute we are just happy you travelled to our wedding.

I had a tiny wedding. We made it clear we didn't want presents, I don't understand why in this day and age presents at weddings are still a thing. Traditionally wedding presents were household goods to help a couple set up home. We are way beyond that now, most couples will already be living together.

I have never heard of a wishing well, but I guess it is a good idea if people really feel they must gift something 🤔

Guests have always given gifts at weddings, this is not a new thing.

I really don’t understand why Mumsnet gets up in arms about wedding gifts - it’s normal to give the bride and groom a gift.

What I don’t like is weddings abroad where a gift is expected. If you want to get married in spain , france ….. then you should expressly say that no gifts are expected.

I remember a cousin telling me that it was nice her wedding was abroad as we could all ‘make a holiday of it’ !!
At our own expense and to a place I never wanted to visit!

That’s incredibly rude - whatever happened to you get what you get and don’t get upset.

First time I ever heard of a ‘wishing well’ at a wedding.

Last one we attended, non-close family, the couple said - very sensibly IMO - that since their flat was very small and they already had everything they needed, no presents thank you, but if anyone would like to contribute to their honeymoon, it’d be very gratefully received.

We just put cash in a card, and - unusually! - actually received a handwritten thank you card a few weeks later.

Twee wording aside, it’s not a bad idea. We had something similar at our wedding - we just said that as it was second time around we already had too much of everything anyway trying to get it into one household so we didn’t want more tat gifts. I can’t remember how we worded it now but something along the lines of recognising that guests may still want to give at a wedding and said what our favourite shop was. We genuinely didn’t want anything and were delighted that guests made the effort to come as virtually none lived locally so they had to travel and stay overnight. In the end virtually no one turned up empty handed* and we got a mix of vouchers for our named shop and cash, some a token amount, some very generous. Some brought champagne instead. We just had a fancy card box for people to “post” their cards.

*The only reason we know that is we wrote a list of who gave us a gift so we could say thank you and realised it was as long as the guest list itself!

I love it when people give the OP a telling off for being British and therefore wrong and then the OP isn't British 😄

I’ve never heard of a wishing well. Is it an actual well that is a prop set up in the middle of the venue for folk to ( presumably) throw money in. Anonymously? Or inside a card?
or is it a link to an account?
sorry. Genuinely no idea!

It isn’t though is it? We got married, said no presents and ended up with loads of shit we didn’t want or need. This idea at least gets rid of the bringing a load of crap option when people ignore the no gifts thing

YABU.
And clearly very jealous.
Grow up.

We wrote something similar in ours as we had lots of guests flying in. However, we also said anyone wanting to contribute could offer a practical contribution to the wedding or a donation to a large wall unit we were going to buy.

It worked well. Local guests put up guests from further afield. One guest did our wedding cake and another our photos. One managed the timetable throughout the day, two dealt with the outside caterers on the day. One borrowed their company‘s minibus and ferried guests around for us. Another- unbeknown to us - filmed the day and edited a DVD for us.

Many of those travelling or helping didn’t give us gifts. And that was just right.

The champagne flutes, socks and microplane we received anyway were passed on quite quickly…

We still have the memories- and the wall unit - 14 years later.