present?

thriftylass

rdone wrote: »

This is exactly what I think. The trouble is, if you don't put anything about a gift/money in the invitation most people will ask and that just makes it more awkward.

As I say, we've written a poem saying out house is full but we just want you to bring happiness and cheer. If you really want to give a gift, money would be nice. (written a hell of a lot better obv). We won't be putting the money towards the wedding at all, it was our choice to get married and spend what we want, the money will go in a savings account for when we need it - whether it be towards children or a new house.

I agree to a point too of course, but if you don't need anything would you rather not ask for nothing. We lived together for 10 years, and yes I could have asked for a nice matching set of crockery etc of for them to fill our bank account. But as you said the guest already have travel costs etc and I felt uncomfortable to ask them for anything else apart from sharing that day with us.

But I guess the bottom line is, do what ever you are comfortable with and that you know won't offend anyone or make them feel uncomfortable. The worst is to have the wrong expectations and be disappointed because you didn't get enough presents or the wrong one.

firebird082

rdone wrote: »

As I say, we've written a poem saying out house is full but we just want you to bring happiness and cheer. If you really want to give a gift, money would be nice. (written a hell of a lot better obv). We won't be putting the money towards the wedding at all, it was our choice to get married and spend what we want, the money will go in a savings account for when we need it - whether it be towards children or a new house.

Ok, I obviously didn't explain myself as clearly as I could have done. I'm not saying that any money that we may receive as wedding presents will be paying for the wedding (It won't, we'll already have paid for it). But I thought how much you spent on the wedding gift was traditionally approximately the same amount as what the couple would have spent on inviting you (so £30/person say, if you were a couple, £60). That's how I've always calculated wedding gifts. In our case, the money we are spending on the wedding could have gone towards stuff for the house, so if we get some money as gifts that will go on what we might otherwise have spent our money on.

I should add that I felt extremely awkward mentioning anything about gifts at all, so I his a little comment about only wanting people to be present on the day at the bottom, I was then asked by a number of people about gifts, so we asked for money as actually it will be extremely useful to us. Another friend of mine who married recently insisted on no gifts, and I felt incredibly awkward as an attendee not giving anything, particularly knowing that the couple don't have very much money.

Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree!

thriftylass

firebird082 wrote: »

Another friend of mine who married recently insisted on no gifts, and I felt incredibly awkward as an attendee not giving anything, particularly knowing that the couple don't have very much money.

Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree!

That's why we did the donation to one of three good causes that meant sth to us instead. So they felt like giving sth if they wanted and neither of us felt awkward.

Totally agree with the we have to agree to disagree, whatever works for the couple.

GoldenShadow

If I was them, I would rather have nothing than a present I have explicitly said I don't want.

We don't want presents. None of our guests will hear of not getting us anything, they all say if you want money just say, but we have to get you something. As a result, we're probably going to put something on the invites along the lines of, if you really insist, we'd rather have vouchers/cash, but you don't have to. I am sure it will annoy a few, but you can't please everyone, and I want to buy my own things for my own house.

I don't like presents, and unless you do a registry (which again, annoys some people) you run the risk of four couples getting you glasses with your names engraved, or three sets of matching mugs with Mr and Mrs on.

Mimi_Arc_en_ciel

well... it looks like we not be going after all!

The bride has taken offense that I haven't added her on facebook yet (To be honest I saw the "add" and thought I'd do it later then forgot)

Sheeh. I know people can be touchy about FB but you'd think I'd just dropped kicked a baby....