To ask for monetary gifts for our weddin?

[TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied]

Everyone keeps asking what we want but we've lived together 2 years and have kids, we've got everything really. We'd rather just have the money and put it towards landscaping the garden or new curtains or a holiday or something, we're skint at the best of times.

Now I know it's terrible ettiquette, but we are getting married abroad and just having a wedding party at home, and I'm just writing the invites and thinking of putting this:

'We want your presence not your presents; however, if you should wish to grace us with a gift, we have lived together for two years and have everything we need, but a monetary gift towards home improvements would be much appreciated.'

I'm prepared to be stoned, I don't care. I just need to know whether it is too rude to do this.

EllieG I would say that is the correct etiquette in this day and age and I would also send you a jolly large cheque precisely because you didn't ask for one (if I had been invited

Perhaps we should suggest what the MN etiquette for getting married is?

Never include any cheesy/naff/crass poems in your wedding invitations
Have a wedding list but don't force it on your guests
Always specify what a cash gift will be spent on (just in case they think you're going to spend it on paying the gas bill/credit cards/blow it on the horses)
Always say thankyou properly so your guests know that you appreciated what you got them
Have reasonably priced items on the list
Never have hugely expensive presents on your list and then expect people to spend a fortune on attending the wedding, hen do etc
If you say no gifts mean it

Any more?

Nah SQ, i'd be qui9te happy for it to go on a gas bill- costs mroe then the wedding these days doesn't it?

Seems to me coprrect etiquette varies amopngst social groups. All my friends ahd wedding lists and so they wouldnt be offended that we ahd one also. Likewise you often see people shocked on here at no free bar at a wedding- yet i've never been to one without a pay bar and thats great, we are all singing from the same hymn sheet

flopsy - in that case you are definitely invited to my next one

i had that in a family invite this year, gave nothing! cant stand the grace us with your presence thing... is there not a shop you like so you can have vouchers to buy kids/household stuff for etc. just dont say anything about presents or ask for donations to a charity if you didnt like what you were given for engagement. hate to say thats what wedding lists are for so you have some idea of either what to buy or taste of the couple.

when DH and I got married, I asked my mum to put it round, discreetly if we could get money so DH could go on a computer course. we got married quite young, he had no qualifications and while we were skint we saw no reason to have loads of nice 'house stuff' in a dingy rented flat. we got a mixture of lovely presents and enough money for the course and it really set us up, DH got a job in I.T a few months later.

When DH and I got married 13 years ago, we had everything for the house already (and I do mean everything; DH bought the house from a couple who were emigrating to Australia and who couldn't take anything with them so the house came fully furnished, even down to the iron and ironing board!) and when it came to invitations, it hadn't crossed mind that people might want to buy presents. We sent out the invitations and when people started asking my parents if there was anything we'd like present-wise, we couldn't think of anything. After thinking about it and as we were hoping to move house after the wedding, we did ask (via my parents) for money and made sure that everyone knew that it was going towards some new furniture for after the move (the old furniture was beginning to fall to bits by then anyway), which is what we did. If guests weren't comfortable with giving money, they gave ornaments but whether it was an ornament or the furniture that we bought, it's all loved and remembered as being from our wedding.

So YANBU but I think asking for a "monetary gift" has to be asked for in a discreet way.