Asked for honeymoon contribution as gifts - should we give bank details?

[Pinkmittens9]

In our invitations we said not expecting any gifts but if they want to, then something for our honeymoon would be lovely. Feel awkward even saying that! But I know people usually want to get you something and we’ve already got a house full of “stuff”.
someone asked the other day if we want cash or whether we’ll share our bank details. What’s the done thing? I guess a lot of people don’t do cheques these days and maybe don’t have cash. But does it seem icky to send our bank details? I was thinking of emailing out some final details for the day before the wedding to guests so could include it but I’m really not sure!!

Well that's pathetic and petty!

Tricky. Giving bank details seems grabby but I would not be happy with lots of cash hanging around on the wedding day. Ripe for being nicked.

@Pinkmittens9 well how old are you? DS and DIL are 30 and dd and bf are 26 and 28. There's been plenty of wedding planning here and it hasn't comprised being so vulgar as asking guests for money.

We attended a wedding once that had said similar on the invitation and the bank details were given and it was widely spoken about how cheeky it was. It's fine if people directly ask you but I think just giving it and saying "no presents but here's our bank details" is a little contradictory? And I'm in Ireland where giving a nice monetary sum as a present is the norm!!

Whilst I agree with this, we said in our invitations that people coming to the wedding was enough of a gift, and that if they really wanted to get us something then either a gift of their choice or a small contribution to our honeymoon would be appreciated, but it was also fine not to give gifts.

We found that most people gave us some money (either cash or cheques), some people gave us a nice gift, and some people didn't get us anything. We didn't keep track of who got us what, other than the one person who made an extremely generous cash gift, and the people who got us gifts for the house that we love and use.

But we certainly didn't receive ten toasters or cheese boards with our names carved into the wood or three sets of Mr and Mrs champagne flutes.

Give them if requested

I've never minded giving for a honeymoon but I'd like to know what you're going to do with it - eg got a lovely thank you photo of my friends drinking a cocktail in a rooftop bar which I'd picked out on their list.

We asked for dollars as we were going to Hawaii- it was brilliant it literally took care of our spending money!!

But that was over 10 years ago so not sure if people would still be happy to go a currency exchange these days!!

If you genuinely plan to spend the money on your honeymoon, you could use a site like Prezola to create a gift list of honeymoon experiences. So people can give you money instead of 'stuff', but it feels like you're giving a gift.

My friend did this on her honeymoon in Thailand, and the list had all sorts on it - a cookery course, a night at a street market, a visit to an elephant sanctuary, a champagne breakfast... and my cousin did too, but theirs was a bit looser - stuff like Airbnb vouchers, room upgrades etc.
I much preferred that than cash, and it was really nice getting a pic of my friend and her DH at the street market, with a 'thanks for a memorable night out' note.

I don't know exactly how it works as the list owner, but I assume it's just a way of collecting cash, but which feels a bit nicer than just 'we don't want stuff so please give us money'. I think the experiences etc are just a way of guests being able to feel like they're actually getting you something- I think you just withdraw cash from it at the end and can do what you like with it.

I think sending back details is really crass and would put a cheque in your card. I'm a mum to babies and toddlers and most definitely have a chequebook.

We sent everyone a thank you postcard from our honeymoon! The woman in the shop though I was mental buying that many stamps for that many postcards but all our guests loved it!!

Yes this is how we worded it. I’m not bothered if anyone doesn’t give a gift as weddings are expensive to attend, but didn’t want people to buy things we didn’t need (and as someone else said, nowhere to store), so felt we should put something.

It would be easy enough to task a trusted member of the wedding party to look after the cards till the end of the day.

Thanks all (most), that’s helpful! Won’t be giving them out unless directly asked ☺️

In the 90s by the sound of it 😄

If you didn't keep track of who gave what, how did you thank people after the wedding?

We put no gifts on our invitation, and stated people could bring contributions (food or cash) for the local food bank. We raised over £400 in money and two full car loads of food and household products. We have enough stuff already and prefer to choose what we buy carefully. We did get a few personal things and some cash specifically for us and bought something more expensive than we normally would to replace something that had broken. I could never ask for cash for me as we are better off than many of our guests

No it really isn't.

Couples who say they want your Presence not your Presents then go on to ask for money...

You sound really sensible OP.

I think you could say we are absolutely not expecting presents but as some people have asked, we would be grateful for a contribution to our honeymoon and if that is what you would like to do here are our bank details / PayPal address. But please don't feel any obligation as we are just happy you can make it to our wedding.

Oh we did for the purposes of thank you notes, I mean we didn't keep track long term. I couldn't tell you who didn't bring a gift, for example. And we thanked everyone regardless of whether they brought a gift or not.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of bank details/transferring cash as it feels a lot less personal/more transactional. However, totally get that people usually live together already these days and have enough stuff! We used Prezola as a compromise, where you can make your own 'items' that are actually cash contributions (for example £25 for a drink watching the sunset on the beach). We then just included a link to the gift list (which also did include some actual items!). It also allows you to do contributions towards larger gifts.

I'm in Ireland and a wedding gifts is always cash in an envelope in the wedding card. Some people might give a gift voucher but actual gifts are almost unheard of. I've never heard of bank details being given so I wouldn't do that. It's not grabby it's practical.

@ShalalaIa Lots of cheques in France, as the poster said. They are not so keen on electronic transfers as UK . Most shops still have the cheque detail printing machines, and when we lived there, you could pay cheques in at the hole on the wall.

BTW, don’t you know this is Mumsnet where everything in the EU is a million times better than UK?

Where do you suppose full grown people who already own things will store all these things?
Whilst I would appreciate the thought, replacement towels and silver ladles would go straight on vinted/to the charity shop because I've already got towels and spoons.

For some reason PayPal seems less transactional and I have no idea why.