Honeymoon fund instead of gift list - rude?

Cilla you can get a pretty good 4 slicer for £10 at asda

Clearly you've never wanted manners then.

And yes, we're obviously the ones behaving in an unladylike fashion.

I nearly wrote the same about giving a toaster (a cheap one at that). Then realised that I was unlikely to share a friendship circle with the poster, so it's a moot point.

Wow

I actually can't express my disbelief at reading this thread...

We have a house to keep, a young child and bills to pay etc etc. We're having a wedding we can afford with a realistic budget, not asking for money or any kind of gifts..if we receive any then we'll be really grateful. The thought of depending on guests stumping up 50 quid each to break even shocks me!

If you can't afford it save up, make it a couple of years later..work hard and have the day you want. If guests want to give you that's great but to ask for it is utter cheek in my opinion and I just can't say how shocked I am at some of the comments ?

I'm off to bed ! This has given me a headache and I need to work my butt off tomorrow to afford my honeymoon! Night ladies ! X

Wow, who was the bit ch again?

Ps thedawnbringer ( op) sorry for your post being hijacked !!! Xx

I seriously hope so & that no one is genuinely this much of a c*nt ?

We're having 20 day guests, i'll have to think of how much each guest will have to cough up for the thousands of £'s wedding.

And for the record if I got that invite i'd take it to the nearest thompsons and transfer a fiver for you to buy some f*cking manners with!

We also have two children & don't use credit cards.

We saved for 12 months to pay for the wedding we want. We could have saved for another 12 to get the honeymoon too but that will just have to wait, at the moment for us getting married is more important. We've not had a family holiday for 3 years, however if we want one, we will save and pay for one. We will not be asking our guests for anything other than to spend the day with us.

I think the general consensus these days is cash gifts as most people are living together at the point of marriage anyways. However, it is totally 100% up to your GUESTS as to what gift they give you. I'd hate to feel pressured into giving a sum of £50 if I couldn't really afford it. Don't forget weddings can be costly for guests too; outfits, hotels, drinks etc...

Exactly what I was thinking!

I didn't get married so I could make a profit. I didn't specify a gift list at all. The majority of people gave us money which was very kind of them, but I didn't even think about the gifts when I was planning my wedding. I invited people because I wanted them there, not so I could make some extra money.

Hope your family and friends don't all find it outrageously rude, buy you 80 toasters and then your honeymoon is f*cked...

We've recently decided to give up or honeymoon and divert our funds to the 'deposit for a house' fund. I was thinking about coming up with some kind of poem to add to the invites in which I offer up a pre-paid B&B type service in our home-to-be, to friends and family who might like to come and visit. Kind of like a time share/wedding present rolled in to one.

Is that acceptable? What is the current going rate for B&B's?

Ahem. ...no backtracking to cover up your poor maths please, it's here in black and white. I think in your own words you're screwed.....best get inviting more for the evening to cover it!!

^ Oh good god it gets better, you want to charge people to come and stay with you?!

Ha I'd so buy you a toaster! It's terribly rude to specify money. I wouldn't be able to afford £50 just now so would probably buy a nice gift and give something homemade.

We downgraded our big £10k wedding to one that cost in the region of £1.8k and no honeymoon. As it turned out, my uncle offered to send us to new York for a weekend. We were so totally taken by surprise, we both had a little cry. We asked for nothing from anyone, some people gave gifts (crystal glasses, a vase, some pretty personalised champagne glasses with our date on, one of the metal sticks from Nandos (loong story), photo album etc) some gave money (we used this for spending money/extras for our honeymoon and the extra was used for a few nights in London on our first anniversary) and some gave us nothing. We were more than grateful and really surprised at the generosity of our guests.

I don't understand if you only have a small income etc. why you'd be booking a 4k holiday?! What'll you do of everyone does give £10, or presents, or god forbid, a toaster?!

I think people are forgetting the only important bit of a wedding is the vows, I hate this trend of so much focus on what you get from it. It's very sad.

I think she's joking???

I know I'm meant to be asleep right now but this is gold!

I hope so!!

You'll have to excuse me if I'm being slow and missed the joke, I'm very sleep deprived!

Is that not OK!?

I personally think this should be locked now as I feel sorry for the OP and its turned into a kind of ridiculous slinging match from people who have different opinions on something that cant be right or wrong

the poor OP asked a simple question which has now been ripped apart, people reply with an answer and got attacked - if you agree or disagree with guest list is fine but its not your right to judge someone you dont know or their circumstances or the people that come to their wedding

personally I do not like giving money and ask for gift list as do many other, you may think its rude to have them I think its a pain if people dont that why mine includes both options for when people ask

I really don't know if you're joking or not... :/

The op hasn't been ripped apart. (In fact I wouldn't say anyone was?) what's wrong with a debate on opinions. Or does a debate "offend" people now?!

Bless you - no I'm not going to charge friends and family to stay in my house that I haven't bought yet. The bit about ditching the honeymoon in favour of saving is true - for the moment - we have 8 months to change our minds and blow the lot

Swbvr, I think people got your confused with redcakes.

That's a tricky one IMO. You could perhaps just not ask for anything and when they ask say you'd appreciate money towards your planned move and you'll invite them over to stay once you're settled in. If you do wrote on your invite I think you need to keep it short. Maybe something off top if my head "we're planning on moving soon so a contribution in return for limitless weekend stays would be much appreciated". That was quite crap but that kind of thing. I'm sleepy so it was probably useless. You could've less specific and just ask for cash for your new lives together as husband and wife? Tricky!

Thank goodness for that ha ha!

isn't really a debate is it, its the majority ganging up on the minority who did nothing wrong... I personally wouldn't ask for £50 but the reactions are very much a group ganging up on one person... I dont see that as a 'debate' a debate usually contains facts and such not just people throwing nasty backhand comments at each other

She's been standing up for herself fine though.

I disagree with her choice but it's not my choice to make. she is is happy with her choice so I'm happy for her. I think we all just wanted to try and get her to see reason (in our opinions) to stop her from making a mistake she could regret. But... we've now all learned that she's confident in her decision which is great.

Cross post. Sorry if I have in any way caused you any offence. Best wishes for your wedding

I don't see how a group of (in most cases) total strangers from completely different walks of life, in different parts of the country who share the same opinion over the internet equates to 'ganging up on a minority'

It just goes to demonstrate that the idea expressed is not what a broad spectrum of people agree with or feel is acceptable.

Loving this thread!

We're not entirely sure what to do about gifts when the time comes to send out invitations, haven't actually thought about it. Our wedding and honeymoon are practically paid and we have a home with everything we need so it's tricky.

I personally would never go ahead and book a honeymoon I couldn't afford and hope for the best the cost gets covered by money gifts...instead I would wait to see how much is gifted to us then book up based on what we actually have. There's nothing to say the honeymoon must be immediately after the wedding.

OP - I don't think it's rude to ask for money instead of gifts, it's not something we're going to do. However, please don't go down the line of specifying an amount or using money poems!

p.s I'd say this is a debate....it's people expressing their personal opinions! I didn't realise there was a rule book out there to be followed!

xx

Woweee think I opened a right can of worms here LOL!!

Thank you ALL for your input. There are some great ideas here, like breaking even the lower priced gifts down (Gondola ride in 4 smaller parts etc) that I think we'll definitely use. Also I'm glad to see the general consensus is it's not too awful asking for something towards the honeymoon. I might just add stuff that is up to £50 so as not to look too greedy.

PS I don't feel my question has been ripped apart, I asked because I wanted everyone's opinion. Believe me this thread is nothing compared to what I've seen on some of the US sites (I looked earlier today), wow those guys seem to just think the whole/ gift/ money thing is totally taboo.. then again they do have those pre-wedding showers where they give gifts, and we don't so we tend to give stuff at the actual wedding instead. Just different views depending on what you've grown up with I guess.

Our honeymoon will cost about £3,000 (at least that is our 'budget' for it, no doubt it will end up costing more! We don't expect anything at all towards it, but yeah it would be more than nice if it ended up costing us half that due to gifts Either way, we certainly won't end up like these people http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2345316/War-words-erupts-wedding-guests-gift-bride-cheap-embarrassing-food-hamper-containing-marshmallow-fluff-croutons.html ??

This really does depend on how you've grown up. I'm Chinese and wouldn't be offended if someone asked for money since that's the done thing in Chinese weddings.

Normally you give a red packet of money to the groom's family at the entrance of the venue, but I've been to one where the MOG actually opened the packets to check how much money each guest gave them and noted down who paid what.

I have heard that with some Chinese people, If you give a low amount of money, the family will make sure that if they are invited to that person's wedding they will pay the same amount and no more.

The going rate for the amount of money to gift to wedding couples is around £100 (if you bring more of your family members to the wedding, you gift more money) and even if you can't make the wedding you still have to pay out of courtesy for being invited.

Just thought people might be interested in how other cultures feel about gifting money at weddings.