Personal Question for all those already married...NO OFFENCE INTENDED! :)

I personally always try to give enough money to cover our meals plus some....when i was bridesmaid I allowed enough for my dress etc & meal....Whilst obviously its all to do with having the people you love & care about there, if I was asked to be a guest at a wedding & I couldnt afford the above I would seriously consider declining...But thats my personal view...I dont expect everyone to agree!

Of course you are. On open forums people should expect to receive replies they don't always want, it's the nature with Hitched especially. If everyone agreed with each other than forums would be a bit pointless.

This really a tame thread. You only need to post about dove/butterfly releases, money poems or how best to tell all your guests what to wear to really see how something can get out of hand!

LOL! Clearly i've seen nothing yet! Thanks for the heads up Lynsey, i'll keep an eye out for those threads!!!

Completely o/t but when I saw this thread I thought it was going to be about how much you DTD after you got married! #onetrackmind

We didn't ask for presents or vouchers but money towards a charity in my MIL's name. we raised £4k. we were also very lucky to get £250 thai baht for our HM, and also some photo frames and a little painting of me and H. you know your family and your culture better than we do, but i kind of think along the same lines as teehee - don't count on getting a certain amount and be grateful for what you do get.

I am soooooooooo intrigued about the arguments about dove releases... might have to search for those. Butterfly releasing would have me legging it, I am absolutely terrified of them!

Meee too!!!!! LOL!

I cant do butterflies or moths...they freak me out! Sorry slightly OT i know but i'm just glad someone is with me! My nephew wanted to go to the butterfly house at the Natural History Museum a while back and i swear i had an anxiety attack!

This is not really directed to the OP

If you post on a public forum then you expect all different kinds of replies. I am totally with Amethyst76, I think it is rude to expexct gifts. You are getting married, it's your choice to invite guests, their choice to bring/give gifts or money. Why the feck should you be bothered if someone doesn't bring you a gift, because you have paid for their meal/entertainment? well it was your choice to do that.

We hardly received any gifts or money when we got married and I couldn't care less and thats the truth, there have been that many deaths in our family inc H's neice at 18 months, H's brother at 18 and H's other brother at 21. Having family/friends there means more to me than any other gift.

If it's cultural then there are exceptions to be made.

Its been a while since a good old money poem / butterfly / dove release thread....or even a goldfish one!

Releasing goldfish into the wild? Now that is wrong...

And I can imagine quite messy!?

That's what I thought too!

No using them in centre pieces!

In reponse to OP I'm not married yet so don't know what to expect. We however went to a wedding recently and brought them a £50 Next Voucher if that helps ?

I personally disagree with some peoples comments on this topic that the OP is cheeky. It's a viable question, and I for one would be lying if I wasn't curious what we may get. I know that might make me sound shallow but that's my honest thought. Obvioulsy I would rather have our guests and us have a wonderful time, that itself would pay dividends to say you had the day of your dreams, than having loads of gifts and having a rubbish time! OP is just curious, what's wrong with that?

We won't be asking for anything in our invites (or so far we have decided against this) but if people ask then we will sya if you mind and don't feel obliged too we would appreciate money or vouchers to go towards our home that we are saving for ?

We have simply invited those that want to give us something as a gift o get us vouchers for a store that we will shop at when we do up our flat as at the moment all our money is for the wedding. If people give us something that's lovely and they will get a very genuine thank you, if people don't that's fine times are tough. But as I don't think an argument about whether people should be offended if they don't get gifts was the OP's original suggestion, nor, as I recall, did she ever say that she would be offended if she didn't get a gift, I think some of the harsher comments are a little uncalled for.

I think everyone would agree that having the people you love attend your day is the most important thing, any gifts are just a nice added surprise.

Well I'm going to be turned away then aren't I? We are going to a wedding at the weekend and will only be taking a card. We have no money and there's nothing I could "cut back on during the month" to save for it. I've just had a baby, H has just found a new job after being unemployed for 3 months and we only recieve MA. I'm borrowing a dress and shoes and we have had to book 2 nights accom - only using 1 night because that's how some of the premier inns are. What are they going to say about us I wonder?

in reply to the op we got about 6k and some gifts. We didn't ask for anything.

I now wonder if some people ask relatives/friends they aren't too keen on because the have a few quid? Hmmm...

I ❤️ you.

I am sure your family/friends love you more than just for any presents you may bring to a wedding they choose to have.

*beams* thanks sm. xx

If we were to only ask relatives/friends we thought were loaded and would give us a big gift... we'd be struggling to find 2 witnesses and would probably end up having to borrow 2 of the staff from the hotel...

If i was invited to an all day wedding of a friend i would give around £30 in cash or vouchers if it was an evening do i would give £15. Do you think this varies on where you live aswell? may be wrong but just a thought. ?

I think you may be being a little over sensitive here, and a tad judgemental- no one has expressed in the slightest that they're inviting certain people purely for what they can get out of them,

We did very well. We didn't ask for anything, most people gave money, others gave vouchers for John Lewis, M&S, house of fraser, argos, and a few other places. We got lots of presents too. Some lovely, some less so! We got 2 sets of wine glasses that are horrid! I'm sure they meant well, one is multi coloured, the other is a tad to decorative for us! We said we'll use them as casual glasses that may get broken rather than special that you're terrified to use! We got 2 photo frames that we did give to the charity shop along with 2 candle stick holders. The charity shop was very happy. (So were we!) I know this sounds ungrateful, but at least the charity shop made some money and the people will never know.

You see this is the sole reason we will be asking for monetary gifts to go towards our honeymoon as we dont want to have to get rid of peoples gifts if they are not to our taste. That in itself seems wholly wrong to me (not having a dig at you mrs spink - most people would do the same, me included ?)

Vikster, just because you ask for cash doesn't mean you won't get gifts. I've been to several weddings where the B&G have asked for cash, and there have been gifts on the table regardless - some people just don't like giving cash. I've given a gift myself when cash was requested because I was a bit hard up at the time and didn't want to give a small amount.