How would you react to this wedding invitation?

In My Humble Opinion
1

How would you react to this wedding invitation?

My eldest daughter is getting married this coming October.

Last night I sat down with her and spent nearly six hours helping her layout and print her wedding invitations. Everything was going along well (at least as well as can be expected using WiltonPrint.com, but that’s a rant best left to the pit) until we got to the ‘All Purpose Cards’.

That’s when we had a little disagreement.

Some background facts that will be known (or become immediately apparent) to anyone attending this ceremony:

[ul]
[li]This will be her second marriage, his first.[/li][li]They have been living together for nearly five years.[/li][li]They have a child. (4 months old this week)[/li][li]Income bracket: mid - upper $50s[/li]
[li]Most family members and guests will be traveling more than 2 hours, and in some cases (e.g., me, my wife, our youngest daughter and her family) more than 5 hours to get to the nearest proximate city to where the ceremony is being held.[/li]
[li]Attending this ceremony will require a minimum 2 night stay at a hotel/motel. (The ceremony is being held at a beautiful, but remote mountain resort a little more than one hour driving time from the nearest proximate city where reasonably priced accommodations are available.)[/li]
[li]Anyone who picks up a brochure or spends 10 minutes on line will be able to figure out that someone is dropping around $3200 - $4000 on the reception hall.[/li]
[li]Anyone who has ever dealt with such things and sticks around for the food will be able to deduce that the catering is somewhere in the $18- $20 per person range.[/li]
[li]120 guests are expected to RSVP.[/li]
[li]The cake alone is $375.00.[/li]
[li]My wife and I have helped a little with the cost of this wedding (about $1000), but the bride and groom are ponying-up most of the cash (which I actually think is commendable).[/li]
[/ul]

Okay, assume that all of the above is known by you, and you open the invitation which you have been expecting, and find a little card inside with this printed on it:

“Because we are already established, please donate the price of your gift to our honeymoon fund so that we may take the honeymoon of our dreams.”

Your reaction, please? (Since I really don’t want to bias this, I’m withholding mine for now.)

My daughter has agreed to wait a few days before mailing the invitations awaiting the results of this thread.

My sincere thanks for your time, and most importantly, your honesty.

Lucy

2

Personally, I think it is in poor taste to even hint that a gift is expected, let alone come right out and ask for cash for a specific purpose. I am also against gift registries. Anyone who is attending a wedding of that size will know someone to whom they can inquire regarding what the bride and groom would like for a gift, should they choose to give one.

Thumbs down. All the way down.

3

While I’m more okay with registry info with invitations, I agree that the honeymoon registry is not cool. People should be able to give whatever gift they feel like, or none at all, and there should be no expectation of a gift. Furthermore, given how fleeting and relatively unimportant a honeymoon is, I would feel like my money was being wasted. At least if I was just cutting them an all-purpose check I could fantasize that it was being used for savings or their child’s college fund or something more conducive to establishing a future together.

4

Erm … I would find it a bit offensive, but then I find gift registries a bit offensive.

I think the thing that would bother me is the newlyweds having an exact idea of how much I think they’re worth! I have always been one to find something different or unusual that my friends would like, rather than pick something off a list or hand over cash!

And how would the thank you cards read? “Thank you for your kind gift of $[insert cash amount here]. We used it to pay for a sexy massage for 2 at the beach resort in Acapulco”

5

My income is very low, and for special gifts I usually make something or order something from one of my creative friends (a previous wedding gift was for example a collection of aphrodisiac oils and scents, made by a friend who’s a herbalist). Asking for money as a wedding gift would put me off because a) it feels greedy; b) the amount I’d be able to donate would be ridiculous, c) a wedding gift is to me something personal, a symbol for my good wishes towards the couple and something useful to them at the same time.

I’d respect their wish, but would feel a bit sad about donating a small amount of anonymous money that could have made a really good gift instead.

6

Your daughter is shilling for gifts, which should never be done.

Gifts are not required, otherwise they wouldn’t be called gifts. To include this “request” in the wedding invitation (or with it as the case may be) is really tacky.

7

My cousin did this, and I didn’t have a problem with it. Some of the family thought it was a bit tacky though as she sent it with the invites.

My husband and I just didn’t register anywhere. People were able to figure out that we’d like money.

8

Tacky, tacky, tacky. Sorry.

If you didn’t want to spend that money on a wedding, there are cheaper ways to get married. No guest is required to give you any gift, even if the wedding cost a million bucks.

9

It’s jaw-droppingly tacky. Lucysdottir, please, please, don’t.

10

There should never be anything about gifts, money, etc. inside a wedding invitation - or any party invitation for that matter. Most attendees will know that this is a second wedding for one of the couple, and that they have a home established.

I will note that I wouldn’t base my gift on the amount spent on the wedding in the typical sense - many “bridezillas” expect to get the per-person meal cost, at least, back in cash gifts. I usually figure that if you spend a lot on the wedding, you can afford to, and give more to those who I know really need money.

(I think gift registries are fine but not the advertisement thereof. They’re a tad tacky but a lot of people really expect you to register, and these days it makes things easier for out-of-town guests if they can log onto a store’s website, pull up the gift list, and have something shipped to the couple. Alternately they can visit a nearby store location and pick it up there. Greedy people who only register for expensive stuff need to be slapped. As for asking someone close to a couple about a particular gift, that works until you get clueless family members, or the problem of multiple people recommending the same thing and suddenly the couple gets half a dozen pressure cookers/bench saws/whatever. If your region has the custom of a gift-opening party after the wedding then some guests know their gift is going back to the store.)

11

I would see that as rude and grabby. If I have to go all the way to a mountain resort and spring for a hotel just to go to a wedding, my presence might well be my gift. Doesn’t your daughter have any friends who live on a budget?

How much your daughter is spending on her wedding has nothing to do with how much money her guests ought to spend on a gift. She chose to have the wedding at a remote mountain resort, not the guests. She gets to be happy that they choose to go to the immense trouble required in order to share this special day with her–no other expectations allowed.

My inclination, after figuring out what would be expected of me to attend this wedding and donate to a honeymoon, would be to send a nice card wishing your daughter happiness and leave it at that. Unless she was like my best friend or something, in which case I would be telling her not to write that on her invitations–it’s tacky tacky tacky.

12

I agree. It’s incredibly tacky to solicit cash gifts and if they can’t afford the honeymoon, have a cheaper wedding or none at all or don’t go on the honeymoon. And I thought the idea of asking for “donations” to their honeymoon fund was especially tacky. I mean, even if I do give cash, it’s not a donation; they are not a charity.

And what’s with the background about how much the reception hall and catering costs? It’s not a paid event, after all. Unless you want to treat it as such and simply tell people what the admission fee is, and forget the idea that’s supposed to be all about enjoying the happy occasion with friends and family.

13

Agree with most – very tacky. Enough so that, were I thinking about not attending, it might tip me to ‘no’.

14

I recommend reading EtiquetteHell.com’s section on “Gimme, Gimme.”

15

Sorry, but no.

We just had my son’s bar mitzvah and he was hoping to buy a laptop from any cash he received. Anyone who called asking what he’d like as a gift was told that he would be delighted with any expression of their happiness for him. If they pressed, I mentioned that he was saving for a computer and any cash gifts was going towards that.

Word of mouth took care of the rest.

16

Perhaps the bride-to-be should be aware that the average wedding guest is not likely to do much research on how much any of the trappings of a wedding cost, and are also not likely to adjust the value of their gift accordingly. Just the opposite, in fact - if I am invited to a remote place for a wedding that requires an overnight stay in a hotel, I am somewhat less likely to have a lot of cash to spend on a present as well.

Regards,
Shodan

17

For Western weddings - I don’t know about other cultures - the only time a request for money is ever appropriate is when it’s a request to donate to charity.

18

This could not be more wrong if the bride’s name was Miss Wrongy Wrongerson.

You never make a guest to your wedding feel in any way obligated to bring a gift. Ever. The point of a wedding ceremony and reception is to celebrate the couple’s entering into the state of matrimony, not to load up the happy couple with loot. Even if it were acceptable in some Bizarro universe to demand gifts, putting that demand in the invitation is horrifyingly tacky.

It is never appropriate at a Western wedding to ask for any sort of gift, including donations to charity.

19

I’m joining the chorus of tacky, tacky, tacky. My daughter’s friend did this a few years back. She also made it clear that she would have a few choice words to say about those whose contributions fell short in her eyes.

I have heard many people say that your gift needs to equal the per-person cost of the wedding. I think that is crazy. IMHO, that changes it from a wedding to a fundraising party much like the ones the Junior League gives to raise money for the March of Dimes or whatever. Especially if it is a destination wedding or much travel is involved, some people have already stretched their budgets just to attend.let alone come up with a couple hundred for a gift.

Someday, I will hear of someone selling tickets to their wedding and I will not be surprised.

20

I think this is the only way to go. Say nothing on the card, don’t register, and mention it, if asked, when people call up to say “where are they registered, do they need a toaster?”