What is the going rate for a gift of money for wedding present?

We went to a wedding at the weekend of 2 very good friends- we gave £60 which was pretty standard within our group of friends- everyone gave between £50 and £100

HTH?

Hmmm, last wedding I attended was March 2009 and it was my MOH's wedding. They also asked for money towards their honeymoon, providing a card of the Travel Agent in the invites, you rang and paid over the phone a sum of your choice towards their Vegas honeymoon. We paid £100 and we had only been invited to the evening do but she's a good friend... and we weren't in financial difficulties then! I guess I would give £50 min.

Sorry to hijack the thread a little but can anyone give me an idea what would be a reasonable amount to give if you are only invited to the evening do?

A girl from my team at work has invited us to her reception. She is a lovely girl but think she has only invited us to be polite as really I hardly know her. They have asked for money rather then gifts, and I don't want to seem stingy but funds are pretty tight with saving for our own wedding.

I'd guess in all these cases 'whatever you feel able to' is the answer.

Everyone's circumstances are different and £20 from one person might be a bigger gift from them than £100 from someone else.

We've asked for gift vouchers or money, and will be grateful for anything we get. Giving a gift is not a condition of having an invitation.

So far our wedding gift fund stands at one cheque of £35, which we can't do anything with until October because it's made out to Mr and Mrs. We have 7 weeks to go. I assume most people that are coming will give us a gift on the day (if they are giving at all) and those not coming may well send cheques or whatever by post in the couple of weeks leading up to the event.

We usually gove £50 for all day and £30 for evening. That's standard for our group of friends. I'll be mega chuffed if we get that back at ours! ?

I gave £50 from me and OH when we went to an all day and night.

I would prob give about £20/25 for evening only.

We gave between £100-£200 to close family, £50 to close friends, £20 to distant work colleagues

I personally wouldnt expect to receive any more than £20 from anyone at the moment as times are tough.

We went to a wedding few weeks back and we gave £20 AND that was all day- but we couldnt afford to give any more?

I don't think you can have a 'going rate'

It will largely depend on individual circumstances. I know I have a few very close people who at the moment for them business is really tough. I'd just like the pleasure of their company, I'm not expecting a gift.

But personally I think giving money is a bit vulgar, if like me and my hubby to be you already have everything, its much nicer to ask for vouchers towards major household items.

WSS

For our wedding we got roughly £50 from couples who are 'well off', and about £20-30 from most people. We would probably give about £30. I dont know if its the part of the country we are in or if we're just cheap ? but that seems the norm round here!

Oh no...now i feel really bad...my stepdad is getting married this Saturday, a week before mine...which I want happy with (it was our original date until a few months back and we changed it due to the venue) so of all the dates to pick, my stepdad's bride picked this one! rant over sorry...

Well I cant afford to rub 2 pennies together at the moment, and I was only going to give £10 to them, as hes 60 and shes about 45, and they arent short of money, and I found it very rude to have an invitation with a money poem in there! and it didnt even state what they would use it for. another rant sorry

Plus Im spending about £25 in petrol to get there and im not looking forward to it. Im happy they are getting married (even though I know hes being pushed into it..but its not my place to say anything).. But she tells everyone 3.30 ceremony and 5pm for reception, so i ask her about it, and the ceremony is 4pm..shes told everyone 3.30 so no one is late and food is 7pm...to me I think this is rude as people will be turning up at 3pm with kids too.

I have kids and luckily are not going because I could not let them starve from about 2.45 till 7pm...ssshh im taking sarnies in my bag..

Im sorry ladies, this was abit off topic..naughty me

Somebody did try to organise a joint collection but so many people said they would rather give their own individual gift that it became kind of pointless. It seems like the general consensus is £20 for someone you don't know that well so think I will just convert that into dollars as they are having their honeymonn in Vegas.

Thanks for the advice guys x

Most people gave us £50-£100 but we got the odd few of £25 - £30.

If we're going to the day, we'd normally give around £50.00, unless it's for a very close friend, in which case we'd give more. My best friend is getting married next weekend and she's asked for money towards their honeymoon, which I'm fine with, but I also wanted to get her something to keep. I've got one of those plant crates personalised with their names and wedding date and will put some plants in it. The crate cost £38 and the plants will probably be £15, plus I'll put whatever Euros we've got left in the house in her card (around 40euros I think).

When we go to a family wedding, OH's brother (who was the first of all the cousins to get married) tends to direct us based on what they were given at their wedding. For the last wedding we went to, we only gave £35 per couple and it was a really great wedding - no expense spared. I did feel really cheap and wanted to give more, but I didn't want to give more than OH's brothers.

I would give what you can afford without leaving yourself in hardship. Don't follow what everyone else has given.. everyone has different financial circumstances. I once went to a wedding where the couple asked for money towards a honeymoon. We declined the invite to go as we couldn't afford it, we were in serious hardship, but the groom (H's best friend from school) begged us to go as he had no other old friends going. We went, but we gave nothing. We simply couldn't afford it without putting ourselves into serious hardship. Both of us had been made redundant in the 6 months previous to this and we'd just had a baby. I don't feel guilty. We gave what we could afford. Nothing.

I think it depends on who the bride/groom are in relationship to you, what they will use the money for and how well off you are.

I'll be putting a cheque for £50 in a card for my cousin's wedding next week - she wants cash to buy her photo album and I know she's not that well off. I would make it £100 for my sister, I put £20 in the collection for a work colleague - and I wasn't even invited to her wedding!

As the others have said, give what you can afford. We vary what we give depending on how well we know a couple but make sure we give at least the equivalent of the cost of the meal for the pair of us so it tends to be at least £100 for the whole day.

I am noticeably stingier when it comes to people asking for cash though, as I find it rude and, unfortunately, it provokes a very childish reaction in my level of generosity! ?

I agree..we sent out a little FB message to everyone, saying that IF you want to give gifts then a donation towards out honeymoon, and OH sister will book the honeymoon destination and keep it a surprise, which could be one night away.

Then when i spoke to people and they asked me how much, I said dont feel like you have to, and said id be happy with £5, as I hate taking money from people and I dont like asking.

I think that we would normally give between £50 -£100, dependant on how well we know the couple. We may also give them some sort of small gift/token, particularly if we know them very well and can think of something personal to give them.

In that case why write this?

Re the OP - We tend to give between £50 and £100 depending on how well we know the couple. If we go to an evening reception we usually give about £30.

Because people kept asking...so oh sent it out and we made sure we put in there...you dont have to give us a gift.

I just think that if you genuinely dont want anything then you should say that. Horses for courses though and I'm not getting into a debate about it.

Like most people have said it depends on how well I know the people, I know I would be more generous buying a gift than giving money but thats because I love presents!!!

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Probably less than for gifts as I prefer people not to know how much we're spending on them, and I don't really like knowing how much gifts cost. For OH's sister's wedding he put the cash in a brown envelope and handed it over - probably about £100.

I think it's in Greece that there's a tradition of pinning money to the bride's dress during the reception - people pin metre long strings of £50 notes... so I guess it's a cultural thing.

Depends if it's just me or OH as well and in some ways how much it cost me to get there - last wedding I went to cost me £150 to get there largely because OH wasn't invited - his car has free fuel and no depreciation/running costs as it's a company car with personal fuel. My car is an ancient sports car (which he bought when he had an unreliable co car), which won the "which do we keep" question by being massively more reliable (i.e. "let me down" when I stupidly left the lights on all night and nothing else) than my much more practical (but probably ought to have changed the insurance address to the garage) car...

It's actually quite common in a lot of countries, where the money given enable the couple to buy/set up their home, or start a business or whatever. It's only really in the UK that we seem to have some sort of wierd hangup that asking for money is somehow wrong.

I always give £50 as an evening guest and £100 as a day guest. unless it is a close friend or family I gave £200 to my cousin when I was cheif bridesmaid.

We usually give between £50-£100 as a couple for an all day invite. The exact amount depends on how much we've had to spend to attend. For example, we gave £50 at a wedding we attended recently because we were flat broke after paying to go on the hen and stag dos (which were quite expensive for us).

I have never given money as a wedding gift so never had to decide on values.

I must be tight cos I only give £20! Every little helps!

I think it depends on your circumstances. We gave OH's brother £100 worth of Euros for their honeymoon, then his other brother we clubbed together with some others and put £100 in to get their flat decorated.

For an evening reception we went to that was close friends (they got married in Vegas on their own) we gave £50 and another one was a sister of a friend and we gave £20 - cos we are currently skint...If we were better off (i.e. after the wedding!) we would prob say something like - £20 for a friend of a friend evening, £50 for a friend evening, £70 for a friend all day, £100 for a family member.

But like i say, its all relative to your money situation at the time.