money as a wedding gift, how much?

claire16c

Im in my 20s and so have been to a lot of weddings recently. Ive spent or given about £50 each time.

At our own wedding, we didnt ask for anything - I hate to open an invite and have a shopping list fall out. If people want to give you a gift, they will! People just asked me or my parents what we wanted - which was money or vouchers. If we had had a list, it could have then been shown to them. I dont think theres any need to include it in an invite.

From friends we tended to get around £30-75. Family and some 'older' friends we have gave more. The only friend who gave us less than that, was strangely one who I spent about £60 on 5 years ago, it wouldnt have stood out otherwise. We were really happy to get a gift from anyone.

But, on another note - your bride hasnt paid for your bridesmaid dress which I think she should have, so I dont think you need to worry about giving her anything over what you can really afford.

purple.sarah

McKneff wrote: »

Thats a thought, my daughter is getting married later in the year and is not in the least materialistic but they have all their pots and pans etc. But people do want to give and feel better for doing to, specially for friend and family. This would maybe take out some of the ambi

We want your company on our special day
We have pots and pans aplenty

honeymoon;s expensive, cash is welcome but
please dont give us any more than £wenty.

any more thoughts



Yes or no.

It's still against etiquette as it's telling people what to give. Don't put anything about gifts in the invite as it comes across like they're expected, if your daughter and her partner have a wedding website they could put information on there or share it with family as they ask. You could let their wishes be known by word of mouth as friends and family ask you what they would like.

Kitten_Pie

I suppose it depends on how close you are.

My BF was my maid of honour and paid for her own dress (I did let her choose what she would wear again as did all the bridesmaids (they didn't match but by pure chance went together perfectly)) and gave me about £50 as a wedding present (we said that we didn't want a present (small flat) and asked for money/vouchers if people wanted to give us something)

I was her maid of honour and she bought the dresses and I didn't give her a present (they also asked for money towards the honeymoon or gifts from a list)

There has been no bad blood between us because of this. Different finances meant that we were unable to offer the same however I have made her a present (took about 50 hours) for her 1st wedding anniversary which hopefully will show how much I care and think of them.

*Louise*

I woudl normally suggest that £50 is a good amount (only if it's affordable of course) but in this case since you have had to pay for your dress, I think it was a bit cheeky expecting a gift as well.

I woudl probably go down the 'gift as a reminder of the day' route rather than cash in this instance.


Personally I have never liked the idea of gift lists or cash requests anyway. Expect nothing and you can only be pleasantly surprised, and you don't run the risk of offending anyone.

Bloomin_Freezing2

We received mostly money or US dollars for our honeymoon as wedding gifts. Some people gave 10.00 some 100 all of it was very gratefully received. There were a few who preferred to buy us a gift, which was equally appreciated.

Give whatever you can, but I agree with others, after buying your own dress etc its a bit cheeky. Give 20, thats what I give, and if you feel bad, follow it later in person saying you couldn't give more as you'd already spent out on your bridesmaid bits.

Treed

As being in the wedding yourself maybe you dont have to give them money? as they will be getting money from guests at the wedding and i presume you know the couple well as your a bridesmaid.. maybe a personal gift, something they havent got or cannot buy? x

JulieGeorgiana

I looked up wedding ettiquette when I got marriage. Apparently it is BAD ettiquette to add a 'list' or a request for money, so we added nothing inside our invitations.

We got some lovely HM gifts, some people asked what we wanted and we said cash for a house deposit OR here is our list...!

Personally if anyone adds a list or money request I always ignore it because I feel it is rude...

I do a 'wish bag' full of things and blessings for the wedding couple (ie. penny so your purse is never empty, wine so you never go thirsty, chocolates so you'll never go hungry, coal (normally an ornament made of coal) so you'll never go cold....) I then spend £10 - £50 depending on who it's for! I know it's not what they want... but it always goes over REALLY well

Ps. I just hate it when you don't get 'Thank You' cards... One person (who got a £50 gift bag) took 6 MONTHS to give us (and everyone) a thank you card! So rude considering they had time to register at John Lewis before the wedding!!!!

fluffnutter

I asked for nothing from my friends when I got married. I think it's absolutely crass to expect money and it causes the kind of horrible anxiety that the OP's feeling. Who wants to feel tight? No one. But if you're a bit strapped for cash, and your mates expect you to pay for their honeymoon how else are you going to feel?? It makes my quite angry actually.

If people want to buy presents, then that's lovely but expecting people to cough up cash so that you can lie on a beach feeling smug is appalling, IMO.

clearing_out_my_pockets

We got married in May and we had three bridesmaids (two friends, one sister), two best men (friends) and two ushers (friends).

One of the best men gave us a £50 gift card for Selfridges (still unspent as we can't find anything we want), one of the ushers gave us a cinema gift card and a lottery scratch card, one bridesmaid said they'd do our favourite wedding photo as a canvas print for our living room and the others did nothing. Does it bother me? No. We didn't ask for anything, didn't expect anything. I certainly wouldn't have expected anything if our attendants had paid for their own outfits (which incidentally our ushers did do!)

dizzyblonde82

As you are already paying for your own dress I think that £20 sounds okay, I also think that as another poster suggested a really nice photo album for honeymoon pictures would be ideal.

For our wedding invites we did put an insert in but it said something along the lines of 'The reason for this invite is that we are asking for your presence and not your present'

We got lots of varied gifts but the one I remember the most is my Uncle who gave us argos vouchers which were already out of date, it was the ones from the promotions where you spend £100 and get a £10 gift card free, still haven't told him about the vouchers lol!