How to ask for cash as wedding present?

bloomin_freezing

I am helping a very busy friend plan her wedding as i am a stay at home mum with lots of spare internet researching time on my hands! can any of you help by suggesting a polite way of asking for cash as wedding presents to put towards honeymoon rather than vouchers or gifts?

ben500

bloomin_freezing wrote:

I am helping a very busy friend plan her wedding as i am a stay at home mum with lots of spare internet researching time on my hands! can any of you help by suggesting a polite way of asking for cash as wedding presents to put towards honeymoon rather than vouchers or gifts?

Personally I have always had a problem with the whole wedding present list, I think it is a damn cheek to ask for anything to be honest, it's a gift! If you don't like it well that's sad but the gesture has been made all the same, anybody who invited me to a wedding and provided me with a list of appropriate gifts to choose from would get a toast rack irrespective of whether or not it was mentioned on the list.

alyth

If they know where they are going for a honeymoon, why not somehow discreetly say that they could money towards a dinner, a treatment (if the hotel do them) and the guests could book that directly with the hotel?

I have to say thought that as personally I would have an issue with this - you are inviting people to celebrate your wedding vows with you and share your special day, the gifts you may receive from them are an added extra, not something you can demand! OH and and I have a policy of never buying from a wedding list but buying a couple of Reidel glasses and a bottle of champagne.

bloomin_freezing

thanks....? what a chearful pair. what a shame i didn't know you guys when i got mairried! but its up to you if you buy things that'll just sit in the back of a cupboard. you obviously have money to splash so why waste your time on mse?

Fritha_2

Blooming Freezing:

Someone mentioned on the wedding thread about a website that enables people to donate money towards your (or in this case your friend's) honeymoon. I've dug through the thread and the post is here
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=4265534&postcount=1673

I'm just about to send out invitiations for our wedding, we've popped in a card for our wedding list so that if people need it they've got it, but I've written on the back that people shouldn't be obliged to buy from the list or even buy a present at all!

I figure ask politely but don't be offended if people would rather not! You could always use https://www.whattogive.com and give people other options rather than just money? (I'm using them and they're great)

You could also ask for money for sepcific bits? e.g. £x for the hotel £x for the flights £x for white water rafting when on honeymoon? Then people actually feel they're getting something specific Your friend could always send them a picture of their 'present' as a thank you!

Hope that helps, and I hope I actually made sense (I've had a trying day!)

alyth

blooming freezing, my point was that I would rather buy something that was personal to me from the couple, rather than being told what would look good in the couple's house! I feel that a wedding list is a "demand" if you like of what the couple want, and I can assure you that a set of Reidel glasses won't give you much change out of £100! I'm speaking for Ben here as well (sorry ben!) in that it's supposed to be, as Ben said, a nice gesture that you want to buy the happy couple a present. If your friends are too busy that they have to ask their friends to help them organise their wedding, a day that's supposed to be the most important day of their life (and I do appreciate that you say you have spare time and have I imagine offered to help them out) then it doesn't seem to me that they're appreciating the importanceness of marriage. Sorry, but asking for money instead of gifts I feel is just greedy, many people want to know that the gift that they send, whether asked for in a list or offered, is wanted, not spend on a nice couple of weeks in the sun.

bloomin_freezing

if you are happy attending a wedding which a 'friend' has perhaps paid the best part of £30 per head for their guests and you go and buy a poxy toast rack as a gift then i so be it. try not to choke on your next bucks fizz or champagne toast!

Zara33

So the "friend" is paying £30 per head this gives them the right to dictate what gifts they get :rolleyes: geeeze ain't marriage changed

bloomin_freezing

i appreciate your point, but for a couple who are working all hours to pay for a wedding to invite friends to, i know would appreciate much more a memorable honeymoon rather than champagne glasses that they can only afford to drink soft drinks from. wouldn't that be more of a shame? don't you want your friends to have a nice honeymoon or are your principles worth more than your friendships? i guess if your friends said they weren't having a honeymoon as lack of funds you can always say at least you have some nice champagne glasses in your cupboard to drink some ribena from!

bloomin_freezing

no zara33, it doesn't dictate at all. wouldn't you rather give a present that would be appreciated and used other than one of your own choice because you think its best?

let me ask, for any charity fundraising, do you just throw in a bag of jelly beans. afterall they can be enjoyed as much as life saving cancer research cant they? and dont even think of saying i'm belittling cancer research as i have a very close relative who died from the disease.

Justie

my brother and his OH are getting married soon and they put a lovely note in their invite saying that as they've already made two households one they've done their share of donating toasters etc to charity shops but what they do need are the bigger things such as a new kitchen or windows which they wouldn't dream of asking anyone for but if guests would like to donate the money they would have spent on a gift towards that then it would be much appreciated.

We got given various things that weren't on the list and I'm afraid most of them went to the charity shop - we did the list as we already lived together and had the basics so people buying us a couple of champagne glasses, however well meant, was doubling up on what we already had... I hate to think that people spent good money on things we couldn't use. Each to their own I guess...