How much cash to give for wedding gift?

[Thisistemporary]

I’m going to my first Irish wedding in about 5 years and not sure how much to give in the envelope. I went to a ton of weddings around the mid 2010’s and most people used to give around €200 per couple but I expect that’s changed with inflation and the cost of living etc.

Any advice?

It depends. Is it family or friends and if friends how close? Is it just you or are you going as a couple?

We're going to one in Sept (our first in years) and we're giving €300. It's my best friends son who called me Auntie BollickyBill and I see him as my first ever nephew.

However, I would give what you can afford.

It still seems to be €200 per couple here, according to my son who was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago.

For irish weddings its about 250e mark.

We give 100 as a couple for friends. 200 for family. To each their own. If we were wealthy we would give more, if we were poor less so it's all about what you can afford to give without it impacting your daily life.

wowzers. Wish you were all at my wedding!

I think consider what you can afford. When we got married, we got £20, £50, £100 and gifts of services/things for the wedding from friends/family. We did a list of things we'd be using the money for: £10 ice creams on the beach on our honeymoon, excursions swimming with turtles, etc. We did not expect gifts and would genuinely be happy with no gift apart from their presence, which is what we said on the invites: we meant it.
As a guide, you could consider the cost of your meal/drinks at the reception and bear in mind any costs you've had to make out to attend. If I had to pay more for staying in location etc that might impact on my gift amount.

Sorry, I am not Irish, just interested. Does this mean that the bride, groom and family hope to recover all their costs of the wedding?

Is this an Irish thing?

Give what you want, and can afford.

Thanks all. Think €250 seems about right. Not hugely close to the couple but they are friends.

@Flossflower No they wouldn’t necessarily recover their costs, in my experience people spend a lot more on their weddings in Ireland. But there’s also a cultural expectation as a guest to give a generous gift. So it does balance out a bit.

Very much so! I'm always a bit shocked (envious) at some of the (UK) responses to this question - sometimes £20!!

I think €150 is fine for friends, €200 for close-ish family, €250 for nieces/nephews. Many would consider these amounts to be a bit stingy though.

Give what you can afford. I’m heavy on couples not expecting their guests to partially “reimburse” their wedding in cash gifts. The higher cash amount we got at our wedding was £100 and that was from close family/all day guests.

We have a wedding in Ireland later on this year and we are gifting 250 euro. There are 4 of us attending including my 2 teen DD. I would gift more but with flights/ expensive hotel etc, it is already costings a fortune to attend.

I’d give €250 too as long as you can afford it, it’s about right ime for the situation you describe.

Whatever you can afford and are comfortable with. People pay a lot to attend a wedding between travel, outfits, accommodation etc. We didnt have anyone at our wedding who we would have thought any less of if they didnt give a gift or money.

I presume @Thisistemporary put this in Craicnet to try avoid the usual give a fiver in a card it's plenty type responses, as Irish weddings are very different to UK ones re gift giving.

I don't think it's changed much in the past 5 or 10 years. In my experience €200 is fine for friends, €250 for very good/ best friends, and wider family. I haven't reached the age of nephews/nieces yet, but when I got married 20+ years ago my godfather (well-off, not super rich) gave me €500 - I'd better start saving for my godchildren!

That’s perfect fly acceptable from people having travel expenses from flights and all the rest, it’s pretty average to give a couple here but no couple knowing the cost of travelling would expect any more from you x

Give what you can afford, the bride and groom won’t remember who gave what.

it is in craicnet so one would assume.

We give 150pp for close or 100 pp after that if it helps as standard.

The Irish are renowned for gifting very generous amounts of cash to the newly weds. A cousin of mine married an Irishman and she was very pleasantly surprised at how much money his side of the family gifted to them. An Aunty and Uncle gifted €500. Even cousins were gifting €100 each.

Definitely would not recover the costs! You need to think of 50€ being equivalent to£20. Ireland is so expensive

Not that much dearer though.
€50 is £43 approx.
Ireland is more expensive too, but not more than twice the price of UK. It averages out at 16% more expensive according to google, but salaries are a little bit higher too.

I’m in the north and had no idea what to give at a recent wedding, I’m married over 10 years. I asked around and £150 was the min you would give if you were a couple. We had to travel and stay so due to the relationship chose to give the £150. That’s not considered generous though here, really hope it wasn’t considered stingy.

I’m Irish, and a colleague told me recently that he and his wife ‘made’ almost 10k after all their wedding costs had been paid!