Opinions..... How much money to give as a gift at a wedding?

For close friends & family as day guests I guess we would give between £50-100, & for evening only maybe £30-40, but of course it depends on the situation & how flush we were feeling at the time.

In the past with close friends if we couldn't make their wedding (I've only missed one & that was because she got married abroad at too short notice for us to afford to travel), I bought a gift of the same value as if I'd attended her wedding.

We're going to book our honeymoon for about 4 months after the wedding I think - we're planning on paying for the honeymoon ourselves, and IF people wish to gift us cash towards it in the guise of donating to a gift list with a travel company yet to be decided upon, then we'll use that money to top up on special experiences etc like meals out I guess. I've never been offended by being asked for money but I do find the poems a bit cringey personally so not planning on using one of those.

I'd never heard of gifting the value of your meal before!

It depends. Normally its a gift voucher for John Lews / Debenhams etc thats requested so I notmally go for £40 if its just me going (close work colleagues that im there all day for) or if we both go then its usually around £60. I dont tihnk Ive ever been to a wedding where someone has asked for anything other than gift cards / cash.

For my brothers wedding, I got him a coffee machine with personalised engraved glass coffee cups with their names, a top hat / dress and the date on for them plus the pod stand and some generic glass cups as thats what they wanted.

Im a little bit in this predicament myself as ours is only a short engagement (8 months) so we didnt bother with save the dates and just went straight to invites and didnt mention money / presents anything on our invite. Cue the grandparents from both sides asking what we want as there wasnt a gift list as well as some of the older family members. The yonuger ones I highly doubt will bother asking and just bung some money into the card and I have one who I think I will just get a card off if anything as they are a bit socially awkward at times.

The really awkward thing about the whole affair is we are only have close family and a few friends there (50 people incl us two) and we genuinely dont really want / need anything and I think its rude to ask for cash or money to pay towards honeymoon (esp as we are only going to go away for a weekend somewhere). I didnt think it would be this much of a minefield by saying we dont want anything but people seem shocked at this and insist on getting an answer.

I don't think wedding politics are as simple as this.

Try and cut your budget by not providing as much food as others, as you get told you're tight and 'it costs a lot to attend a wedding', or go the whole hog and make sure your guests are fed, but have to spend a little more, and get told 'you chose to spend that much money.

It's never a clear decision, I don't think.

I've only ever been to one wedding (my sister's) & I got her a nice heart shaped doormat for about £15 as I knew she would like it.

I think if a couple wanted a gift, I would spend about £15-20, or if it was cash they'd prefer, about £20-30.

I don't see anything wrong with couples asking for something specific like cash, when prompted. I'm not a fan of the money poems or gift lists, just because I think it's a bit off asking for gifts before you've even had an RSVP from someone!

We haven't asked for anything on our invites/website but we've had a number of family members ask what we would like, or if we have a gift list. We've said that although we're not expecting gifts, if they insist then money would be nice. It won't be to pay for our honeymoon, but will give us a little bit of spending money once we're there.

I wouldn't turn my nose up at someone if they only gave me a fiver though!

In the US we have a bachelorette party for our friends our own age, which is where the lingerie gifts come in, and then a bridal shower for the female relatives, including grandparents. Sexy gifts are not usually appropriate there. But at a shower in general, whether baby or bridal, gifts are usually given. It's a time for all the women to get together, play games, and give the bride marriage advice. Usually it's thrown by the MOH but my mother is organizing mine.

I think where the issue is for me is that they have yet to meet my parents and haven't really shown any interest in speaking to them ahead of the wedding. There have been a lot of comments about how things will affect the British guests, with not even a mention of any of the American guests. It's like they don't exist. OH's brother even made a comment about how he and his wife had to contribute a smaller portion to their father's birthday gift this year because they have two sets of parents to buy gifts for. As if I'm an orphan and we only have to worry about OH's parents.

I am always the lone American in the room and am constantly being asked to do things the British way because "that's how it's done here". I don't really have the option of saying "Well that's not how we do it in America" and just continuing on as I would usually. I have to adapt. So I think it's fair that they also take part in some American traditions, like the bridal shower. It's not just a throwaway party, it's a very big part of our wedding tradition, so it would be nice if they could make the effort to participate in my culture a little bit rather than the effort always being one sided. It's very easy to purchase something on the US Amazon site, or any American website, and have it sent to the house. You don't have to worry about customs or international shipping and it would probably be cheaper because the pound is stronger than the dollar and companies don't always charge tax here on online purchases.

This may have already been said, but just throwing it out there, as this seems to be a hot topic for debate - is a wedding gift not meant to be something to help the newlyweds start their lives together??

Yes, traditionally this meant a gift registry of household items to 'set up home' together, as couples weren't living together prior to the wedding...but surely these days (and I'm not saying that 'traditional' circumstance isn't still the case for a lot of couples), but if a couple requests money as a gift, surely it is up to them how they spend that money, whether it be to start a family, save it for a house deposit, spend it on household items, to pay off the wedding so that they don't start married life in debt, or to pay for a lavish honeymoon, which they couldn't otherwise dream of? Gifts shouldn't come with instructions on how to use the gift?

Personally we've given an amount reflective of how much has been spent on us eating at the wedding (Although for family and close friends we give more), but this is only because this was the advice I got off a friend before we attended our first wedding! We are at that age where a lot of our friends are getting married, and we wouldn't be able to afford our own wedding if we forked out hundreds at every wedding we go to!

I think it's fine to ask money for a wedding. I went to a wedding last year where they asked for contributions towards their honeymoon. I gave them 100 USD which I thought was a fair amount considering the wedding was outside of London and I had to pay for a room and travel. However, what annoyed me was after the wedding, they sent out their thank you cards 7-8 months later, nothing personalised. I wish I'd only given £20 now.

For me, the intention behind it is important. As I mentioned above, there's nothing wrong, for me personally, with preferring cash or honeymoon contributions. If a couple receives cash then of course it is up to them to decide how to use it. But there are definitely some brides who make assumptions that guests will give a certain amount and book an expensive honeymoon. If it all works out, that's great. But if you assume wrong and you receive less than you expected, or someone prefers to give a gift instead, then you need to make sure you can make up the difference in cost. Otherwise that is when we end up with the bridezillas who throw tantrums because the gift was too small or wasn't exactly what they wanted (cash). I've heard a lot of people who want to ask for cash because they have "everything they need" and are very very insistent they don't want gifts. That's perfectly fine if you prefer cash, but you can't insist on not getting gifts or only receiving cash (because let's be realistic, even if you say 'your presence is your present' it is the very rare guest that will actually show up with nothing. They'll bring cash. It's silly to pretend otherwise). Sometimes our loved ones, especially the older generation, want to give us nice things that maybe aren't absolute necessities. And they should be allowed to do that and the gifts should be graciously accepted. I've seen the exact same thing with regards to the "pay the cost of the dinner" issue. Some brides will throw a more expensive wedding than they can afford because they assume they will get the food costs back from guests. If they don't, they're left with a big bill and it can lead to some less than polite behavior.

It is the assumption that "I know I will get X amount in cash gifts so it's perfectly fine to book a more expensive wedding/honeymoon than I could normally afford" that gets people into trouble.

I have NEVER recieved a thank you card, I wouldnt expect one, I wouldnt want one and certainly wont send any of my own... what a massive waste of natural resourses

not to mention why should people need to be thanked in writing for the basics of manners ? people show up and get fed, watered, gifts and entertained on the hosts purse strings but because they took a 'gift' (as ettiquette dictates, its manners not a special out there thing you do) people expect some special acknowledgement, it all just feels like kids getting a star sticker for brushing their teeth ? and a great way to make someone elses day about how wonderful a person you are for being generous ?

I get your point but the person attending a wedding also spends a lot of money to be there - outfit, travel, hotel, drinks, blow dry, present - it all adds up and so I think it's polite to send a thank you to guests. We write cards of congratulations I think it's polite to say thank you. We have always received thank yous from our friends and families for the gifts, personalised too which was a really nice touch.

You make the decision to make your wedding as big or small, budget or lavish as you like, and you pick who's coming. To say you wouldn't give a thank you card smacks of 'well it's the least they can do after I've laid on this day for them.'

I will be sending thank you cards, not just for the gift, but to acknowledge their time and support they've given to us.

If I gave someone a gift/money (as well as the cost of travel, accommodation, drinks, etc plus taking annual leave) and it wasn't acknowledged, I would be extremely p*ssed.

It doesn't have to cost a lot of money, even a heartfelt email/text would do it.

Yeah, I totally agree. It's not just the gift, it's also the support you've given the couple over the period of their relationship and engagement. As you say, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money or anything at all, but a nice e-mail saying thank you with some nice words would be nice.

I agree with Karen and SunnyGoldConfetti. I got thank you cards with our names and photo on cheaply from a seller on ebay and added a handwritten note on the back thanking them for their specific gift. We specified no gifts so a lot of the messages were thank yous for support or help or advise along the way etc. Most of us are nice enough to do things without expecting thanks but it's still nice to get it.

As a guest You might be getting a lovely day out with nice food and prosecco but that doesn't mean you would have chosen to spend upwards of £200 that day for a meal out, transport and appropriate clothing plus a gift for the couple if it wasn't for their wedding so I think guests go to a lot of trouble and expense for you.

It's basic manners to send a Thank You card to wedding guests.

Plus if you were handed a birthday present you would open it and say thank you. A lot of the time wedding gifts aren't opened until afterwards so a thank you when you know what the gift is and have seen it is surely polite.