I sure she has, and reading what people’s reactions are likely to be - people who aren’t people she cares about, but whose reactions are probably similar - might help.
The fact is, one of the hardest social graces to learn is the polite subterfuge. Yes, she and her husband-to-be are hoping to get money they can use on a honeymoon. And there’s nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. (I personally hope they get it - it sounds like some time away with just the two of them would be a great thing!) What there is a problem with is letting the guests *know *that.
We all fart. But we’re supposed to *pretend *we don’t, in company. We all hope to get money at a wedding. But we’re not supposed to *say *it.
To be completely honest, my first thought was “Fuck that noise.”
You invite guests to a wedding. How much you chose to spend/waste on the wedding is of no consequence to them, and it has no bearing whatsoever on the amount they spend on a gift, should they choose to give you one, nor should you in any way expect any said gift to somehow compensate you for how much money you chose to spend on a party. And asking for cash instead, because you don’t want to bothered with handling “stuff,” is absolutely tacky.
Getting married is cheap: cost of the marriage license, plus maybe a tip for the officiant. The rest (including the honeymoon) is fluff and completely unnecessary.
Heartily agreed. For us, our honeymoon is the wedding, since we’ll be out of the country anyways for the ceremony. But you can take a trip with your loved one at any point in time–the wedding is the one time that you’ll get to celebrate your marriage with all your family and friends (hopefully) present. Focus on enjoying the day, and if you don’t get to go on a honeymoon, well, that’s what anniversaries are for.
Given that the wedding is already in a remote location, cash gifts will be much more practical for both the guests and the couple. Take what comes, and hope that you don’t receive anything that won’t fit into your suitcase.
Oh, hell no. Generally, wedding gifts are to start the couple out in their new household together. Your daughter already has a well-established household, complete with baby.
Exactly. If I were to attend a resort wedding, my gift would be correspondingly modest, because I’d already paid for travel and lodging just to attend. If your daughter sent out invitations asking to help pay for her honeymoon, I’d be tempted to donate what money I would have spent on a gift to a homeless shelter in her name. (I probably wouldn’t. I’d probably bring them a bottle of wine instead. But I’d be tempted.)
Oh, I agree with you completely on that point. Far too many people lend tacit approval to such actions by not rebuffing the behavior.
[Bolding mine]
True Doper wisdom, if ever I read such before …
And, this is a delicate situation for me. I do not wish to hurt my daughters feelings, and, because I am so proud of all she has accomplished in her life despite severe hardships, emotional trauma and loss*, I really hesitate to confront her on this point. But as a parent, I also recognize that I have a responsibility here, so … into the breach I go.
I’m hoping (against hope) that I can find a way to wade in from the shallow end of the pool and don’t end up doing a belly-flop off the high-dive. I’m hoping this thread will help.
Wish me “tact”.
Lucy
*Her first daughter, our first granddaughter, was killed in a tragic auto/pedestrian accident while crossing the street on her way home from school.
None of the bulleted points matter in the least, no matter how much the wedding is costing them, or attending it is going to cost the guests,
printed on the invitiations is still an absolutely awful idea and in horrible taste. It will rub people the wrong way and make them think the couple was raised by wolves.
Nothing about gifts goes in the invitation, unless you’re only getting married to shake down your family and friends and you want the guests to be clear that’s all the marriage and the guests mean to you.
Not to add to the avalanche, but… I’ll add to the avalanche. TACKY, GREEDY, and GRASPING.
If I were invited to this wedding, the cost of transportation and staying two nights in a hotel would essentially eat up all my discretionary money. I might be hard-put to afford a gift, unless I had at least six months’ notice. Since the Happy Couple is already established, my gift would probably be something artistic and sentimental, such as one of my drawings, or a photograph.
Reading that note in the invitation would instantly turn me against the idea of giving cash. My reaction is, “They’re rich enough to afford this Remote Mountain Resort, and they’re already putting us to strain just getting there; now they want more? I don’t think so boys and girls!”
Also… mentioning the honeymoon right in the invitation gives the impression that the Happy Couple’s minds have already moved on past the importance of the wedding and its vows, and past consideration of their guests, and are focused on their private pleasure. This may or may not be true–but don’t tell the guests this!
And its the fact that so many people aren’t even aware of polite subterfuge that gets us into this. Polite people don’t tell other people to their faces that they are being rude. So, as Tom says, many people think they are getting away with this. Other people have done it, and they didn’t get thrown in prison. What they don’t know is that Uncle Bill and Aunt Edna were going to write them a check, then decided not to come at all but send a card, because Aunt Edna is far too polite to say “what a greedy bitch” to their face.
Etiquette isn’t about honesty. And it certainly isn’t about direct honesty.
Indulging in this type of nonsense would get one reaction from me:
“What the ****? I mean, WHAT THE ****ing ****? First the bitch wants us to hike our asses out to the middle of nowhere and spend our own money staying somewhere we’ve never particularly wanted to stay, then she wants MORE cash on top of that? The entitled ****! Who raises their children like this?”
This would go on for a while, depending on my energy level. The invitation would go in the trash. Anyone phoning to ask what happened to the reply card would hear a very slightly watered-down version of the above. If the invitation were from someone in the immediate family, my husband would probably ask me to just lie and say we were unavailable to attend. We would argue about it but I would probably agree to that bit in order to avoid embarrassing his gentle self.
Oh man, not to keep babbling about this, but as I was reading the OP and got to the punchline, my thought process was:
“Dude, fuck that noise”
…
“Wait… what?!”
So they spent a jillion dollars on a schmancy-pants wedding that requires their guests to spend multiple hundreds of dollars and significant amounts of time each to attend, and then imply that they, the guests, are responsible for the cost of their ticket? If they’d wanted to “take the honeymoon of their dreams” they should have had a cheap wedding and celebrated with a lush vacation.
I’ve said it before here, but I think the idea of expecting your guests’ gift to be commiserate with the cost of the wedding to be completely backwards. A poor couple that can only afford a modest ceremony, where the intent is to celebrate their union with dear friends and family will get a much more generous gift from me than an extravagant couple that throws a chi-chi high-dollar bash that requires me to travel and spend a night at a hotel. That couple doesn’t need anything from me to start their home life together, and if they did, they shouldn’t have blown their (or their parents’) wad on a stupid party.
Honestly, if I received this invitation from an acquaintance or distant relative that I see once or twice a year, I’d send a card with best wishes, and immediately forget about them. If this was a dear friend or close relative, I’d say something to them about it, but I still wouldn’t give them cash. After springing for time off work, travel, and a night at a hotel, I couldn’t afford to.
I’ve got to say I would find that completely tacky and rude.
Do you mind if I ask how old your daughter is? It seems the younger generation find this completely acceptable, but in my eyes, it just seems greedy and selfish. By the way, I’m only 44 so I don’t think I’ve hit old fogeydom…yet.
This is very different though. It’s the couple who, instead of passing out little net bags of Jordan almonds or whatever, are making the charitable donation. They aren’t asking the guests to make a donation.
Absolutely not. Any implication that a gift is expected is tacky.
ETA: that picture of Miss Manners in her column looks like one of those portraits made out of jelly beans.
Several times in other wedding threads I have posted how my wife and I, under similar circumstances, managed a memorable wedding by just asking people to buy no gifts and pay for their own meal at the reception. I had booked out a restaurant and since we had been living together for years we didn’t want or need gifts.
The whole wedding with a reception for hundreds of people cost us about $200.
TACKY. Please, please, please don’t! Getting to resorts like that is enough of a challenge (I work at one that sure sounds like the one the wedding will be at) without extortion like that. It’s going to seriously offend people to be asked for piles of cash on top of that.
It would be tacky if the wedding were in their own living room, too, but the only way I can see the “please give us money if you want to give us a gift” thing being at all acceptable is if it’s pure word of mouth, and even then it’s iffy.
I’m on the wrong side of the mid 50’s and headed down the other side, and I still haven’t hit “old fogeydom” - so I think you’ve still got some time - then again, maybe not …
Oh, yeah - and would ya get off of my lawn? Damn kids these days go no respect for their elders!
I can’t imagine who would have put their stamp of approval on the first “gimme” invitation that made its way into the mailboxes of the wedding guests, but I’m pretty sure it was done by someone who either didn’t ask anyone’s opinion or was raised by wolves. In any case, it is done by a lot of people these days, which makes it unremarkable (if you squint your eyes an tilt your head a little to the left)in those circles.
If this thread doesn’t open her eyes, point her toward the etiquette books. I cannot imagine a single one would be in favor of this.
