Gift list in evening invites?

We mentioned our gift preferences ("your presence is most important, but cash and vouchers appreciated", basically) on both all day and reception only invitations.

Fab! I'm terrible! I know you have to put the presence.. blah blah blah but seriously - does anyone mean it? Yes I want them there but Im afraid I was presents too!!! haha!!!

Hi,

we have included the honeymoon contribution list to both day and evening invites but with their presence is more important etc. but have inc both

To be honest, if I'm invited just to the eve do, I've always bought something/voucher etc because its a wedding celebration, and would want to give something to the couple as a thank you for inviting me to the evening.

If people dont for us, I wouldnt be offended at all. But there will always be some that would want to do something.

Unfortunately the "gift list" is the biggest nightmare we ever came across in our "reading up".

One book said that you should never put a gift list in with an invitation, yet 2 paragraphs later said that your guests would expect to bring you a gift (so how do they know what to bring?). Later it said it was perfectly acceptable to put a link to your wedding website, which has a page about gifts on it, but how is that different than putting a list in the invitation?

In the end we just decided 'sod tradition' because most of it is outdated anyway and put the little paragraph along the lines of what I posted above. So far nobody has queried it and the only 2 declines we've had are one person who's on holiday at that time and one who probably wouldn't have come if it had been on their doorstep let alone a couple of hours away.

We worked out that if every guest (including children) brings £150 each then we'll have enough for our deposit lol but it's not the end of the world if they don't - and we certainly won't be frisking them at the door or shaking them upside down to see what falls out of their pockets as a condition of attendance...

The information section on my invites are the same for both day and night, apart from the rsvp date so yep but the gift suggestions on the evening too.

No, I wouldn't. I think it's very rude. I think it reads 'You're not important enough to make the grade of the ceremony and wedding breakfast but bring us a gift anyway'.

I've had many an evening invitation with a gift list and I know each one has been poorly received by our group of friends.

We did as it was on a sheet with all our other accommodation, catering info - we got good feedback about this, apparently people would rather know what you would like than get you another toaster/bale of towels! x

We are not having evening guests, so we don't have this issue.

We were once invited to a wedding were this happened, but we were sent away after the ceremony and then invited back for the evening reception. I thought that was the height of bad manners in itself, but we also received a gift list with the invite. I wasn't best pleased to be perfectly honest. It cost nothing extra for us to be there in the evening (there was no buffet and no drink on arrival), so I thought it was rude to include the list (especially since most of the items were ridiculously expensive).

We had a similar situation recently, Ili. Come to the ceremony, go away for the breakfast, come back for the evening do, oh and here's our extravagant guest list (cheapest item a garish paper weight at £88!).

It was a fair distance away and would have necessitated an over night stay too.

If you were that upset about it, why did you bother to go?

It's not "bad manners" to not invite everyone to the wedding breakfast - it's the normal thing. If you feel that people should be invited to the whole day, which is clearly going to be limited by venue size and or budget, then by your logic you shouldn't have been invited to the evening reception in the first place if you were "not important enough" to be invited to the wedding breakfast - which usually the most expensive part of the day.

I can understand that people can feel awkward when confronted with a gift list of outrageously expensive things which is why we said cash or vouchers towards setting up our first home together so people can give as much, or as little, as they desire.

It is perhaps strange not to have an evening buffet and a drink of some description on arrival - but I suppose your friends had their reasoning for it and it's not really anyone else's place to question that.

I dont see the issue tbh - being an evening guest you are still a guest to the wedding and should be happy to be invited not bitter that you didnt get a full invitation! If I was going to a wedding, whether as a day guest or evening guest I would take a gift with me to offer my congratulations and would appreciate a heads up first as to what to get!

I think its old fashioned for people to get offended at being informed of a gift list or what to get the bride and groom. I think it makes life much easier!

Indeed, grateful for any invitation - rather than resentful for not getting a £50 a head meal provided to you, your partner and 15 kids... never understood the 'sense of entitlement' some people have when it comes to attending other people's weddings.

As for the gift list, would you want 15 toasters???

I do think it's off to invite people to the ceremony and then send them away for the wedding breakfast, there were about 40 people that we invited just to the evening do - we wanted to celebrate with them but there was no way we could afford to have them for the full day - would have upped our costs by another 50%. We provided £1000 behind the bar, plus a buffet and cake in the evening, so we were spending out on the evening do in any case. We put the gift list info in, as we kept all the info the same on the invites. TBH if any of my mates were petty enough to resent that I'd rather them not share any part of my day!

Go for it, but word it in a way that they don't feel obligated, and don't expect anything - most of my evening guests just bought a card, however there was one who bought something that cost £90. There was also one that came to the full day and didn't bring anything and that still smarts...

I wasn't upset at not being important enough to attend the whole day. I just think it's inappropriate to be be invited to the ceremony and then sent away. Also, we were under the impression that this was the case for everyone apart from immediate family, which turned out not to be the case. I would have prefered her to be honest with me from the start, and to have been invited to the evening part only.

I do think it's rude to include a gift list for evening guests if you are not providing any refreshment for them.

CB - cheapest item on the list we got was an £80 vase! I got them vouchers from the store instead - perhaps this is why we didn't receive a thank you card?? ; )

You see I think this is stupid in itself. People have very different budgets, and I could never have done that. The cheapest thing on our list was £6 saucers. Oh and completely agree with you about the inviting and sending away - accept that they're not going to be at the ceremony, or invite them to the whole day!

Re the whole evening guest thing, the other thing I'd consider is how much people are paying to get there. It was important to us that our wedding was in London, where we live, thus easy to get to. Our evening guests were only paying for an oystercard to get across to the do, whereas I do think it's slightly off to invite people to the evening do if it's 200 miles away and they'll need to pay for a hotel/travel. In that case I'd say you shouldn't include a gift list. I also think gift lists are a bit off for foreign weddings, so I guess it's all personal choice!

In hindsight there are a few weddings I've been to where an appropriate gift would have been the most recent Debrett's Guide! ?

I'd never heard of Debretts! Just googled it, they have a very helpful wedding section on the website!!

Just because a gift list is included doesn't mean you are obligated to buy something, or an expensive item, off the list.

I'd be happy with a £10 Argos voucher if it was a choice between that or nothing. Never understood gift lists with loads of expensive items on it.

I love my Debrett's guide although mine's a little out of date.

In my personal life I am a complete stickler for manners. Thank you notes, gifts for a hostess etc All very important to me.

I'm with CB and Trickers on this one - I think it's bad manners. We're not having a gift list nor are we mentioning anything about gifts on our invitations. If people ask then I'll tell them we don't want anything, just for them to come and celebrate with us. If we end up with 10 toasters then so be it. I like toast!

I don't understand this 'people should be grateful to be invited to our wedding, it's costing so much to feed them blah blah' thing. They're our guests and should be treated as such.

Each to their own though! x

Neither do I understand how people can be offended not to be invited to the wedding breakfast either but hey, such is life. If we'd have been able to not have a wedding breakfast we'd have gladly done without but all hotel type venues insist on having one and it's darned expensive too.

This is one of the periodic hitched questions that comes up about once every 2 months and always causes a lot of debate. As long as you're happy with what you've decided then that's fine. I don't think anyone puts down on their lists "turn up with a gift or you're not allowed in" so it's up to the individual couple isn't it?

I guess we all have different thoughts on what's rude. What I think is really rude is when people hold "birthday dinners" at expensive restaurants, meaning you're forced to come along and pay a percentage of whatever the total is - you can't get out of that without refusing to go, but that can work out a lot pricier than an optional gift to a wedding - I also think it's rude to make people travel abroad for weddings, but other people don't have an issue with that, so live and let live!

I was invited to an evening do of a neighbour a couple of years ago. One evening I was having a cuppa with her and she said to me that if I wanted to come to the ceremony I could but that they were really limited on numbers for the breakfast. I wasnt offended in the slightest, in fact I thought it was nice of her to invite me to see them get married. Me and OH went to the ceremony and then went off for a pub lunch locally and then went back for the evening do. I cant understand how anyone would be offended at that. Not that I'm asking people to do that at my wedding, but if I did and someone was offended I'd think they werent very good friends at all and wonder why they bothered showing up in the first place.

I am not sure that I would send out an invitation which eluded to the fact that they were invited to the ceremony but not the breakfast, and then join in the reception in the evening, if the wedding was quite a distance away I would wonder what I was going to do all afternoon. However I do understand the cost reasons and I do have friends that have already said that they are doing this, without any comment from me. Luckily our wedding is local to where we live so anyone invited to the evening only will most likely turn up at the church anyway, along with the little old ladies in the village that "love a wedding"!!!

As for the gift list thing, we will be putting it in. If they want to ignore it they can, if they want to get something else they can, I would like to think that my nearest and dearest would know us well enough to know that it isn't in there to cause offence.

I am still waiting for my thank-you card from a wedding I went to last February. I think it is rude not acknowledging a gift at all. I am planning on sending thank-you cards to every single one of my guests just for attending, irrelelvant of whether they gave us anything.

I personally think its really bad manners to invite someone to an evening do and put in a gift list, but then i equally think asking for money or holiday vouchers is bad manners as well!

It is rude not to acknowledge a gift, sure ... but a 'thank you for turning up' card? Not heard that one before.

Not so much of a thank-you for turning up but rather a thank-you for sharing our day with us. I thought it was a nice thing to do?

Very well mannered, Mrs C. I agree you should thank your guests for attending.

I think thats a fab idea Mrs C. Really lovely and shows your guests that you appreciate them taking the time to come to your day. Think I may do that as well.

Not saying it's "not a nice thing", just not something I'd consider myself *shrug* see what the b2b thinks about it.

I also wanted to hand write and personalise every single one.

I have quite a few which were just printed cards from the photographer and just felt "mass produced" if you know what I mean?

Totally agree mrs c, ive gone to evening receptions before and got a thank you, it IS a thank you celevrating oru day with us!

Id feel it rude NOT to thank people!