Whats the best way to ask for money on a wedding invitation?

Idiophreak · 9 February 2012 at 2:54PM

duchy wrote: »

I didn't really have an issue about people asking for money as wedding gifts until I saw one bride and groom along with mothers in a travel agency I worked in go through the contribution list for their holiday/honeymoon (guests either called in or phoned to contribute ) and comment on each person's generosity or meaness (in their opinion) very loudly. They were even working out who was still to contribute and working out how much they could expect from them. Made my skin crawl.

This is quite shocking, actually.

I felt bad the day after our wedding - because we were setting off on honeymoon that day, we had to sort out who'd given us what really quickly, so we'd be able to do the thank you cards when we got back.

So we sat there, one of us opening envelopes, the other one on the computer with a spreadsheet, just reading out "uncle harry, £10. aunty sally, £20" and so on. We'd already opened and read them all properly the night before, so it could have been worse, but we still felt really kind of ruthless and indelicate, like we were keeping score. We were able to see in black and white (as we used the invite list to mark against) who'd not given us anything and were able to see who'd been most generous etc.

It was a necessary process (so we could check we'd not lost any of the cash, as much as anything else), but not a very nice one. The idea of doing this in public's just horrid and shows a real lack of caring

(then there's the "do we mention to Harold Bishop that we didn't get anything from him" debate, which was even worse...I'm surprised I've not seen that discussed on here, actually)

bratz81 · 9 February 2012 at 3:42PM

Personally I think putting gift list details in an invite is a bit cheeky, and think asking for money is even worse.
I recently received a wedding invite with bank details on the invite and found it extremely cheeky.

We have a gift list for people who want to buy (not expecting anything!) and will tell people if they ask us. Other than that we're just happy if people come on the day

tfutcher · 9 February 2012 at 4:23PM

I have no problem with receiving wedding gift lists/money poems. It is something that has happened in every wedding I have ever attended and seems the norm to me. Because of this we are using a money poem (but this is expected of us within my family).

As people have said, everyone is different and I would find it unusual to receive an invite without any mention of a gift

Bennifred · 9 February 2012 at 4:43PM

Ladybird_Lady wrote: »

................................

I think asking for money is fairly common now.

I'll say!:(

Glitterpix · 9 February 2012 at 4:46PM

I think to expect a gift at all is a bit rude really...

I'm getting married in three months, and we're having a nice small ceremony. We can't afford much of a honeymoon as we have two young children, and I'm self employed so not exactly raking in the money. So we're only going to spend what *we* can afford. We're going for a "mini-moon", 4 nights away in Cornwall in a nice not too expensive hotel. We figured we wouldnt need too much money as we'd be mainly sight seeing and surfing.

Anyway, if people want to give us a gift on the day thats up to them, but if we're asked beforehand then we'd say a bit of money would help us out, but we don't need anything extravagant.

I think it's just more respectful to get whats given and be thankful, dont forget these are friends and family, not just random guests lol

Glitterpix · 9 February 2012 at 4:47PM

and the account details on invites is just shocking!

sugarwalsh · 9 February 2012 at 5:00PM

I don't think that because someone includes gift lists in their invites it doesn't mean they are expecting gifts. It is tradition to take a gift to a wedding, but you don't HAVE to. Personally I would feel rude not giving someone a gift for their wedding and I think including their list in an invite simply negates the part where I have to chase up an already harrassed bride to find out what they want. Especially as I leave everything to the last minute.

I also have no issue with people asking for money. I'm 34. My friends who are marrying have all lived together for a long time. Most of them have what they already want with regards to their homes. If they want money to pay for a honeymoon, home improvments or to pay off their debts, that really doesn't bother me in the slightest. If I give someone something it is not for me to tell them what to do with it!! If I don't want to give money there are lots of other things I can do instead. I can bake a wedding cake, help out with favours, plan kids activites, frame a picture, make a play list - there are endless opportunties to offer a 'gift' to the bride and groom.

Megan

Miskate · 9 February 2012 at 5:15PM

Idiophreak wrote: »

Those 5 minutes calls will add up and most will be rather longer than five minutes (people aren't just going to call and say "hi, what do you want? OK, bye"). People are going to be busy in the build up to the wedding and getting a couple of calls each evening to answer the same questions would be pretty tiresome.

And you'll leave yourself open to the people that just won't call and will get you a house from lilliput lane instead. They'll waste their money, you'll get something to sit in a cupboard or the attic for the rest of your life - who's the winner?

Personally, I understand why people don't like "asking" for money and I think the way you phrase it is very important (hate to say it, but I'd never include the words "may we please respectfully request a monetary gift" as in Dorset Lady's example), as it can offend people easily.

For this reason, I started a website and simply provided a link to that on the invite - then on the site there was a list of things we wanted to do on honeymoon that we'd appreciate contributions toward. Of course, we dressed it up in the necessary "honestly, we don't want gifts, but..." nonsense. This meant that people could feel they were contributing to a certain thing and we sent photos to match in the thank you cards. This worked well as we got to retain all of the money (an issue with a number of the gift lists that let you do this - some of them take around 10%!)

I really think it's about time we lost all the formality and "properness" about this, though...it's just such a waste of time and energy.

Idiophreak - did you just create your own website and set up a PayPal link for people to contribute through? I think this is a really good idea but don't have the web know-how to do it myself!

I've looked at the Gift List registry companies and all the ones I found you either pay an up front fee, or you have to pay 1.5% on each gift!