Though I love Enderw24’s suggestion, you can send just a card wishing them the best in their marriage.
Or, if you absolutely must send something tangible - send a sixpence (“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence for her shoe”) which is relatively inexpensive, totally appropriate, cash (as requested), and completely useless all at once.
It’s like that in the US too. Being surprised was completely a me thing. I tend to be pretty absent minded and clueless about things in ways that nobody else is. It wasn’t so much that I was surprised that people would bring gifts to a wedding, it was that I had focused so completely on other issues that the issue of gifts went right over my radar. My wife and I never has a single discussion about them before the wedding and I just never even thought about them until I saw them piled up on the table. I was kind of startled for a moment and then I thought. “Oh, yeah, it’s a wedding. I gues people will bring gifts.” It wasn’t just the last thing I thought about when it came to my own wedding, I clean forgot to think abut them at all.
It is rude to mention gifts unsolicited. If you are asked what you want, it is fine to state any preferences.
According to Miss Manners, however, it is unacceptable to request money, even when asked. I agree with her. I believe that the most you could do to hint is to answer “Oh, we already have everything we need, but thank you so much” when asked, and hope that people’s desire to give some kind of gift will most likely result in a check.
I’m really starting to wonder what kind of weddings I’ve been going to. I’ve never, ever been to a wedding where you bring a gift. I’m picturing something like a kid’s birthday party with a garrishly decorated kitchen table and gifts dumped on top, though I’m sure it’s… different. When I’m invited to a wedding, I buy a gift and drop it off a week or two before the ceremony. It would seem everyone else is doing this too, as I haven’t yet observed any confused people wandering around at the ceremony, gift in hand. So I’ve no idea whether other people have bought gifts for the couple, and could not care less. Certainly not enough to “talk” about it.
I’ve also been raised to think that any unprompted mention of wedding gifts by the couple is very rude, and that asking for cash is just… wrong. Most of the weddings I’ve attended have been for couples in their late twenties who moved out of their parent’s houses ages ago. So, if they’ve been living together for awhile, they’re usually all set for household stuff - if they’ve just moved in together, they’ve madly trying to figure out how to fit two of every kitchen item into their cupboards. If asked, they’ll usually say they don’t need anything and truly don’t expect gifts. I usually go for a gift certificate or donation in the couple’s names. Or super nice wine glasses or a martini set, which always seem to go over well.
And if I was in the OP’s position, I’d want to send nothing, but guilt myself into sending a card. But not one of those fancy schmancy $10 ones! No sirree.
I usually deliver the gift several weeks before the ceremony too. However many others (at least in Australia anyway) don’t do this. Instead they bring the gift with them to the church or to the reception. This could be because they haven’t managed to get their act together and buy the gift any earlier. Or it could be that they’ve come from interstate or overseas and have brought the gift with them rather than sending it through the post. I went to a wedding in Brisbane a couple of months ago and I certainly wasn’t going to entrust my gift (some glassware) to Australia Post. I took it with me on the aeroplane and just gave it to the couple at the reception.
for ten dollars.
If you invite somebody to a wedding, you choose what they get: ceremony, drinks, food, etcetera. If you can’t afford a big party, you make a small party for your friends and family. You don’t get marry and say: “Here’s what it’ll cost you! Send us the money!” That’s quite outrageous, invited relatives are more or less obliged to go, if nothing else, and it would be like asking them to buy a ticket for the event. My god! – To ask for gifts is isn’t really that bad, that’s just tacky.
When I got married, we invited friends and relatives, and had a line which said: “For further questions about the arrangement, please contact [my stepmother].” That’ll help those who got questions about gifts (and whatever), because some will have. But the thing is, the wedding party is us giving our loved ones something, we’re celebrating a great event, not doing business.
I guess we were those tacky types…
When we got married we told people who asked where we were registered “We are registered at Wells Fargo Bank.” We explained that we were moving overseas and if they wanted to buy us a specific gift to please give us cash and we would buy it there (electrical appliances especially). Most everyone who attended our wedding thought the cash idea was great. We did get a few real gifts, and frankly, they are still in their packages at my mom’s house 8 years later. What didn’t they understand about us moving overseas and not being able to transport a 2-foot diameter porcelan fruit bowl?
So I feel there are reasons to ask for cash if you are asked about things like that. But I am weird like that anyways…So if y’all want to think of us as tacky, feh, go for it.
-tcat
OK here’s an idea the couple are under pressure from family member/ friends.
Due to pressure from parents or whoever they are having to invite certain distant cousins and family friends …
They already live together and have most of what they need for their house, they’re pretty flattered that anyone is making the effort of coming to the wedding and don’t expect any presents. However various friends & family members are also asking them “Have you got a wedding list / why haven’t you got a wedding list / You’ll end up with lots of unwanted presents if you don’t have a wedding list”. They find the idea of a wedding list distasteful (Dear Father Chrsitmas I want …) but would like to do up the kitchen some time soon or have a nice honeymoon … what are their options ?
See it from all sides before you jump to making harsh judgements … They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. (I would never read a request for money as asking for help poaying for the wedding that’s for sure.)
I’ve been sent details of wedding lists where the best I could afford would have been half a Kitchen knife …
Been asked to make a contribution to an account at a travel company …
Been told nothing at all …
PS I’m getting married myself this summer and about 60% of people have demanded details of our wedding list despite the fact that we sent a note with our invitations stating we don’t expect presents (as 80% of guests are travelling in from abroad).
My underline.
I have to say if a distant relative was getting married and I wasn’t going to attend their wedding all they’d get from me would be a RSVP saying I can’t make it.
As to the cash thing, well it wouldn’t really bother me as I’m a lazy sod and just putting cash/cheque into a card is easier.
There are a couple of “polite fictions” in weddings.
The first, and probably most important, is that all brides are beautiful. It doesn’t matter if the bride looks more like Andre the Giant than Angelina Jolie, all brides are beautiful.
The second is that all couples, on their wedding day, are headed for a life of blissful happiness. It does not matter if he is having an affair with the maid of honor or if she is going to be in the bathroom with the bartender later in the evening. It does not matter if this is her fifth marriage or if he can’t stay sober long enough to hold a job. On this day, their prospects are bright and shiny (and if you can’t hold the snickers, send your regrets).
The third is that the bride and groom themselves need to feign the cluelessness expressed by Dio on the subject of gifts. It does not matter that gifts are expected or that its important to get the couple what they want. The couple, when asked, needs to express that they have everything they can possibly want in each other and why would they ever want to toast bread. They have no need for material things and will be able to live off love.
Wedding gifts are traditionally given to help a couple set up house together. That’s why you get sheets and a toaster. If you don’t need sheets and a toaster, you really don’t need wedding gifts. However, people will, when you say “we really don’t need anything” give you cash. “We really don’t need anything” is polite code for “shove a check into an envelope please.” Under no circumstances are gifts some sort of admission price to the wedding that are supposed to re coup the costs of the wedding. If you want to spend $50 a plate for dinner with a lavish dance and an open bar instead of having a cake and punch reception at your mothers house, that’s your business. I give the same gift regardless.
Or it could be because they grew up and/or are still living in a somewhat isolated rural community where bringing the gift to the wedding is not only okay, but the expected thing to do, and sending it on ahead would be considered okay but odd. Every wedding I attended in my youth (and that was many; we’re related to a ton of people) had little kids assigned as “gift runners” at the reception so people standing in the receiving line wouldn’t have to hold the beautifully wrapped toaster they had brought. I didn’t know until I was twenty that people sent gifts to brides before the ceremony. Even then I thought it was only very wealthy people, because I saw it in a movie.
I understand the reason for etiquette guidelines, look up the answers when I have questions, and do my best to be a polite member of society (I even chew with my mouth closed 
). But I’m pretty sure that I’ve done some things in the past, and will probably do some things in the future, that offend people, just because I don’t know. I wasn’t trained in the finer points, though I’m trying to rectify that now.
I don’t like the cash grab either, but is it possible that these people just don’t know any better? In that case, it seems like the best response would be a kind note and a good example.
In this instance, this is, politely, bollocks. It is good form to ignore someone eating their asparagus with a knife and fork, or using the wrong spoon for their sorbet. Ignoring the bride and groom’s request, however tacky, is bloody bad manners. Give them the money and be done with it.
I was wondering in another thread if anyone had ever sent an etiquette book in lieu of cash - I love it 
I’m getting married soon (two weeks - sweet Jesus on the cross). We have everything we need - and our urge to extort our friends and loved ones for cash and prizes is best described only in the negative.
I registered for gifts only after endless badgering by my sisters and one of my cousins who finally made me snap with the following comment: “Register for the convenience of your guests. They are going to give presents, whether you like it or not. They want to give presents. Some of them consider cash tacky as a wedding gift. Give them a list so they can pick something and be happy it’s something you expressed at least marginal interest in.”
We also invited a number of cousins we see approximately once in every fifth year (if at all) because they would be offended if we didn’t. We almost surely invited at least one cousin who didn’t give a rat’s pink ass we’re getting married, wouldn’t have been offended to be left off the list, and probably is convinced we’re merely gift-extorting (my cousin Katie, actually!). This is because it’s more polite (in my opinion) to invite people who’d have no interest than not to invite people who do - and the only way to be sure is to hit them all.
Still, the OP’s cousin was tacky to mention gifts at all - let alone indicate a specific gift she wanted of people. It’s my understanding that you have a wedding to celebrate the start of your married life, to announce to your friends and family you’ve found the love of your life and plan to keep them always and to invite them to share the celebration with you. Not as a golden opportunity for cash and prizes. Hence, you don’t mention gifts in your invitation - or even allude to them via the inclusion of registry information. If people wish to bring a gift (and it is considered polite to do so), then they can ask their choice of the happy couple, a member of the wedding party, a parent of either bride or groom or any other source that’s likely to know for information. In theory, the people you invite to your wedding know you - and hence should have some idea whom to ask for such information.
As the majority of our guests are arriving from out of state to our wedding, I have every intention of assigning some of my younger relatives the task of gift wrangling at the wedding. They’re young enough to be exicted that they’re included - and it will prevent my guests from running around packing gifts all day which would be a nuisance for them. They’ll be in charge of taking the presents off to a discreet location (as we’re getting married in the park this will almost surely be someone’s locked car) where nobody has to worry about them.
I request that you send me a check for $5000. I’m so happy to meet someone who finds turning down a request (even a rude one) to be impolite!
That’s how I was raised too.
Interestingly, many years ago when a young lady and I were planning our wedding, she was telling all her friends and relatives exactly what she wanted as wedding gifts–and it was mostly cash. That was bad enough, but then she turned to me and said, “You have to let your family know we want cash. If they give us those dumb crystal ornaments and silver trays and fancy stuff they typically give, we’ll just return them for cash.” This wasn’t the only factor that led to our breakup (before the wedding, thankfully), but her unabashed way of boldly asking for cash and demanding that I do it too was one of them.
I’ll have to second (third? fourth? sixth?) featherlou’s suggestion of a nice card with best wishes. No matter how crass CiL’s request is, nothing can be achieved by responding with play money or cheques made out to “Jack Shit.” Such things have been fun to read through and imagine though!
I’m constantly amazed that people do not see greedy, self-centered, manipulative behavior by their intended as a big neon warning that these characteristics will be exhibited to an even greater degree in the marriage. You saved yourself a lot of grief, Spoons.
I suggest cash from other countries. Particularly change, rather than paper money, so that it would be more difficult to exchange. And mix in a bunch of different countries. I have several yen, a couple sheckels, and some Euro cents I’d donate to the cause.
That takes all the fun out of it.