Giving cash is not tacky. Wanting to get cash is not tacky. Sending your wedding guests an invoice with the invitation is what’s tacky.
BTW the gift registry originated so that guests could buy things from the department store like china or flatware place settings that would be the same pattern that other guests might be buying, so everything would match. You would register your pattern. Now it’s just a “gimme” list, what with all manner of stores establishing gift registries.
This. No gifts should be suggested or requested on a wedding invitation.
However, if it’s what they want and I was going to the wedding, I would probably pony up (unless I already had something special in mind for them).
Heh. My brother got married some time ago. I didn’t know what to get him/them, so I bought him a wallet and stuck a couple hundred bucks in it.
He told me his wife opened the gifts while they were on their honeymoon:
“WTF? He got you a wallet?!?”
“Better look inside, honey.”
Edit: OP’s situation sounds slightly tacky, but I don’t know them as well as the OP does.
Huh.
I thought the idea originated so that there wouldn’t be duplicate gifts.
“Oh honey… look! Our fifth toaster!”