How to ask/collect cash as a present

Idiophreak

sharpee wrote: »

Now knowing our guests we know they will ignore this and want to give something. So we had thought of asking for a donation for our honeymoon/ house deposit / cost of the Wedding.

I think leaving the cost of the wedding out of it is definitely the way forward - but asking for a house deposit or contribution to the honeymoon is definitely acceptable. My sister used a website (bliss list) to allow people to buy certain experiences for their honeymoon - the cash all went into a pot, but it gave people the impression they were buying something specific - then my sister sent a photo in the thankyou card of them doing whatever the people had paid for - I think that made it really nice and personal.

I'd also try and disassociate the cost of the wedding from the gift list - it just doesn't seem a healthy way to view it. A wedding isn't a profit and loss account. Everything averaged out, our wedding's costing something like £250/head (gosh, hadn't worked that out before :eek:) - but we're not dreaming of getting anything like that amount back...if we get a few quid for some spending money on honeymoon, that will do us just fine!

iamana1ias

stuart.pinfold wrote: »

OK, maybe that was somewhat clumsily-written, maybe I should have said they "appreciate" the amount we will have spent on wine, food and entertainment for the day.

Why should they? I never, ever give it a second thought. It's your choice to have your wedding that way. It wouldn't influence how much I spent (or didn't spend) on a gift.

stuart.pinfold wrote: »

With regards to your "ticket to the wedding" point, I think weddings are a unique occasion. I can't think of any other event where one person/couple pays for everything. If a family met up for a large dinner in a restaurant, they would split the bill. If friends got together for a BBQ, they would either bring drinks/dessert/etc, or repay the favour by hosting a BBQ/dinner themselves later in the year. What makes weddings - where one or two people or groups of people pay for two family's and two set of friends' food, drink, bubbly, entertainment and more?

Can't you? I can.

Christenings/naming days, funerals, childrens' birthday parties, housewarmings......... Never known them to be paid by committee!

If I host a BBQ or dinner party I provide everything. Food, drink, entertainment. I expect people to bring nothing but themselves. They often bring a bottle, so much so that I have an impressive wine collection, but I would always ensure I already had plenty in for them to eat and drink. I'd never expect them to bring their own pudding!

iamana1ias

stuart.pinfold wrote: »

I think it makes good financial sense to calculate how much an event is costing per guest. It's all well spending X amount on wine and Y amount on venue hire, but if you haven't done the figures to calculate how much that breaks down to per guest, how do you know if those amounts represent good value for money or not?

I certainly wouldn't tell guests how much we'd spent on them,

Assuming your username is your real name and your guests have the internet, you just did

stuart.pinfold wrote: »

and in my previous post I pointed out that weddings are unique in that it's one or two people paying for four groups of people's (2xfamilies and 2xsets of friends/colleagues) entertainment and catering for a day. In no other situation I can think of would that occur.

I've given you several.

stuart.pinfold wrote: »

As others have pointed out above, certain sections of guests will want to give a gift. In our situation, it makes no sense for them to give us a toaster, or a set of scales, or even electronics like a tumble drier. We either have them already, or don't have room or a need for them. Therefore, why not CONTRIBUTE (and we have made this key word clear, contribute as in optional not required) to our mortgage fund if you appreciate the food, wine and entertainment that we have laid on for you for free.

House deposit, fine. Honeymoon, acceptable (just). Contributing to the cost of the wedding/your weekly food shop/car insurance, unacceptable.

Don't forget that it will cost your guests money to attend your wedding, and that often runs into hundreds of pounds per person/family. How would you feel if your guests didn't feel that "value for money" for what you're offering by way of food, drink and entertainment?

m3ech

We're trying to do the same thing too, we've also been together a good few years & seem to have filled our house well already, so instead of having lots of lovely glasses that we'll never use or 3 toasters we've also decided not to have a gift list.

Instead we're saying to those that wish to (and we really aren't expecting anything) then we'd much rather have a honeymoon that we'll always remember.

I'm in the middle of trying to figure the wording out for our invites but once I have I'll let you know what we're having! I must say that I'd personally much rather give a contribution than waste my money on something that the couple might have already or just don't want. I'd personally like to see them do what they'd like with the money & put it to good use! Although I don't think anyone should expect anything.

Idiophreak

stuart.pinfold wrote: »

I think it makes good financial sense to calculate how much an event is costing per guest. It's all well spending X amount on wine and Y amount on venue hire, but if you haven't done the figures to calculate how much that breaks down to per guest, how do you know if those amounts represent good value for money or not?

Because a lot of the things have nothing to do with the number of people, so the cost per head is actually a complete irrelevance.

For instance, the bride: her outfit, underwear, shoes, hair, makeup, accessories, beauty treatments all of these things are going to add up to a certain cost, which is the cost of making her feel magical for her one special day. I care about the absolute figure, sure, in terms of affordability, but why should I care if averages out at £5/head or £50/head? It won't effect the amount that's spent.

The same with a band...do you go "well, there's only 20 of us, getting a good band would work out at £50/head...getting a sucky band is only £20/head, so lets do that"...no, you get whichever band sounds good, for a good price...

And so on.

Most weddings usually have a certain amount that is "cost per head" - ie the cost of adding an extra person to the guest list - but this can make up only a fraction of the total cost of the wedding (in our case, around 10% in total).

iamana1ias

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Brilliant.

You've deleted your posts, Stuart, but Google doesn't lie

And you an "expert" in SEO!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

kmmr

So far in the wedding planning this has proven to be the MOST contentious issue for us! Serious arguments about this.

OH thinks we should ask for money, I really dislike it and wanted to have some 'item' options on the list. My family are very keen on giving things, and I'd rather not get 100 toasters, but his family prefer the money option.

So, we have found a halfway house of sorts. We are using the buy-our-honeymoon website (you can choose a nice title for your actual website) where you create a list of things that form part of your honeymoon. So people pick to pay for 1 night at a hotel, or dinner, or a bottle of champagne, or upgrade to honeymoon suite, or part of your flight, or whatever. Plus a few extra things like a massage, or, in our case, we have said things like 'spotting a giraffe'. We have promised to send appropriate pictures of each gift as a thank you. We spent some time getting pictures to match the gifts so it looks better.

The guests can pay in cash on the day (the site registers that they are reserving the item), using credit card or even paypal.

I am still not super keen... but it felt a bit better than the cash option. But believe me this is an issue that people will have strong opinions about.

Some people are still insisting on gifts, but I have promised to direct them to the site again, and only if they insist then perhaps we can think of some other things. Anyway, lots of stress actually on this issue... so best of luck!

sharpee

Thanks for all your replies

We don't expect anything from our guests but many (even people who are not coming!) have asked whether we would prefer a present or money towards our honeymoon/house deposit and how would we like them to "give" it to us.

Our Wedding is an intimate affiar with only 18 guests so only our closest family and friends.

I haven't for one moment thought of it as a way of recouping the cost per guest, siply because it costing us in excess of £200 per guest. I know that sounds a lot but we wanted a lovely day with fine food, wedding, music, venue etc.:beer:

I will look for those sites mention where you can register a honeymoon list.

Many thanks for all (even the controversial ones) comments and post:)

codemonkey

I don't think its rude at all. In my experience, (although maybe I just have friends with expensive tastes), wedding lists have always had really expensive stuff in them and very few things under £20, which was a lot for me when I was struggling for money and had to buy outfits and get to the wedding and pay for drinks. I actually hate the idea of a guest list more than asking for money. A guest list feels really cheeky. "we want that plain white dinner set which costs 3x as much as the cheapest one", then you end up buying a gravy boat because it's the only thing you can afford on the list and feeling like you're tight.

We're asking for money if our guests want to give us anything (although we'd certainly not expect anything), because we have a small house and all the stuff we could possibly need. I think I'd rather have £1 from a guest, than have them spend £20 on a toaster, which we'll put at the back of a cupboard, because we have a perfectly good toaster already.

As for counting up how much each guest costs - never even thought about it. They're there to celebrate with us, not to give us stuff. If they choose to be offended by our request, then they're free to give us something or not give us anything or not come at all.

Wording it is tricky though. I dont want to sound like we're going "give us all your money so we can afford to get rid of the smelly bathroom carpet".

iamana1ias

codemonkey wrote: »

I don't think its rude at all. In my experience, (although maybe I just have friends with expensive tastes), wedding lists have always had really expensive stuff in them and very few things under £20,

I'm off to a mega-posh wedding in July. The cheapest item on the guest list is £500. :eek: