So $12.00 plus the cost of a gift (Typ $10-$15)… Let’s just say it’s 25.00 you are spending. Plus the time spent (only young children have parties at such places. You don’t drop them off. Even if you did, the time is not long enough to go do something), gas money… And at this age birthday parties are typically all or none at schools. This means you will have at least 10 invitations throughout the year. Yeah. I think we’re busy that day.
At my office. One of my office friends (who I have occasionally hung out with outside of work) will get 3 - 4 people together for a workday birthday lunch. We’re talking sandwiches for everyone and maybe a cupcake, nowhere fancy. The rest of us will chip in for her lunch. It’s a couple bucks more than what we would have spent on our own lunches.
I don’t mind doing it for her (I do genuinely like her), and I’m sure she’d reciprocate if I did the same for my own birthday. But I’d never do it for my own birthday because it would feel weird to me to invite other people to take me out to lunch for my birthday. Heck, I haven’t even done it with very close friends of 30+ years.
Unless someone foists unrequested gifts upon me, I don’t intentionally facilitate occasions where gifts are specifically solicited for me, with the exception of immediate family and/or my own wedding. And at weddings, gifts are pretty much inevitable. There were a few people who didn’t give us wedding gifts (mostly adult cousins attending with their parents - to me, if you are living independently, you give your own gift, but I certainly never said anything to any of them).
We do this at work quite frequently, although you’re right–it’s not the Birthday Person who does the inviting. A group of us who don’t normally out to lunch outside of birthday celebrations will go to a place of Birthday Person’s choosing. The coworker who does the organizing (usually whomever is closest to the BP) will be the one who picks up BP’s check. Everyone else pays for themselves.
The difference is that this is always an informal gathering. No actual invitations, just a word-of-mouth thing. Sometimes I’ll be told about such a gathering right before it’s supposed to happen. I think this is a key difference (in addition to this being an adult affair, and adults don’t care so much about birthdays, usually). But it is similar in that the parents are acting as the organizer, not the host. They are basically telling everyone, “Hey, I’m taking Junior out to Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday. If you want to join us, this is where we’re going to be.” I can see how parents might feel like this model is a suitable one when budgets are tight but they still want their kid to feel special on their day.
I think it is borderline tacky, bound to ruffle feathers. But it seems like birthday parties are landmines nowadays anyway. Don’t invite everyone in the class and you’re a jerk. Invite everyone but ask for financial support and you’re a jerk. It’s a wonder why more people don’t become Jehovah Witnesses. 
I think my imaginary children would hate me, because I wouldn’t want to be bothered.
I’ve actually never heard anyone say you’re a jerk if you don’t invite everyone in the class, and in my experience, lots of people don’t. Some schools have rules that don’t allow giving out invitations at school unless you’re inviting the whole class, but that’s a rule about giving out invitations, not who gets invited- you’re free to invite fewer kids, you just have to get the invites out through email or by phone.
But to be specific it’s the *birthday girl *initiating and organizing this, not a buddy?
Well look, it’s all in the details.
If the mom stands at the entrance to the venue with a silk purse and turns kids away who can’t pay, or worse, lets them in but sends them to the ‘poor kids’ table then yes, she is a horrible excuse for a human being. But if the other parents know each other I don’t think that asking for a voluntary contribution to help offset the cost of having the party at a restaurant is all that bad. Particularly if it’s a large party with a big guest list. But it should be done ahead of time, behind the scenes, among the parents. It should not be printed on the invitations themselves.
I wouldn’t pay for my child to attend a party, absolutely not. I think these parties are getting ridiculous anyway. Even in my poor folks neighborhood people go in for the big parties for even little kids who get nothing out of it except a sugar rush from the cake. I have never had a birthday party for either of my daughters. We go out for a nice dinner and they get gifts and I make them queen for a day or whatever but I’m not about to go in to debt renting a bouncy house and buying a bunch of party bags full of cheap crap that gets stuffed in to a drawer and forgotten.
I’ve been told to bring the amount you think the per-plate reception cost, usually $75-150. Im purely Middle Class of course, and cant comment if you’ve been invited to a Trump wedding . . . .
I think at most, there were birthday parties at Pizza Hut and McDonalds. Other than that, they were at peoples’ houses and we played stupid little games and had cake and snacks and got little treat bags. Anything fancier than that was only a trip for you and your best friends, not the whole class.
I’ve been to tons of birthday parties with adults doing this. Sometimes it’s the birthday person who invites people, sometimes a friend, sometimes it’s word of mouth and sometimes it’s invitations on Facebook or Evite or something like that. Usually dinner and/or drinks, but sometimes other events. I’m actually going to an Astros game this Thursday for a friend’s birthday and I’ll be buying my own ticket, although we’ll be in a section where the tickets are $5. It’s always very casual, where you can bring a friend along, and on the flipside no one is offended if you can’t make it.
So far as gift giving, I sometimes ask friends to NOT give me a gift (because I know they can’t afford it). I also say I am not going to give them a gift. They REALLY appreciate it!
Also my brother is quite well off and has everything he needs. I have everything I need. It is SILLY for us to give each other gifts of useless things neither of us wants or needs. A long time ago I suggested we just send cards - he liked that idea and we both do this now.
Allow me to rephrase: If your gift is large you can arrange to have it delivered separately.
But every single wedding I have gone to, or that any of my relatives has gone to, has had people bring money and/or gifts.
I have never heard of a wedding that didn’t make provisions for gifts.
And yes, if you’re poor you give less, and if you’re rich you give more, but at the end of the day the happy couple shouldn’t be losing out financially because they’re throwing a modest party. (Unless their spending is completely out of hand, but that’s another matter entirely.)
It’s not a ledger, but there is a bit of quid pro quo: You invite me, I bring a gift to thank you for inviting me, and to ensure I will be invited again.
Now of course budgetary considerations come into play, but the invitee has to make the gesture.
The gesture counts, whether you’re invited to the wedding of Rich Aunt Martha or impoverished Cousin Eddie.
But showing up to a wedding empty-handed? THAT’S tacky.
I’ve been to adult parties where they do this, I think its tacky, but I keep my mouth shut. It was particularly tacky in the past because it was my brother in law, there would be one huge tab, everyone would throw in a $20 bill, and my husband and I would pick up the $400 plus tip that everyone’s $20s didn’t cover.
I’ve been to kids parties where they do this. I think its tacky, but I keep my mouth shut and don’t take it out on the kid. The sad thing is that when you have parties like this with kids, a whole bunch of kids don’t come - their parents don’t want to spring for the $12 for Chuck E Cheese, plus a gift. And you can’t short a kid Chuck E Cheese age the gift.
If you can’t afford it and don’t want it at your house - a local park works. We’ve been to those. Homemade cake out of a box .99, .99 can of frosting and somewhere with a playground. A kids birthday party is an hour or two anyway. Its harder in a Minnesota winter, then if your house doesn’t work, you have to find somewhere that does - which unless Grandma’s house is appropriate, can mean paying.
I feel that I need to clarify - I’ve known friends to organize events for someone else’s s birthday, and I’ve known people who wanted to do some particular activity on their birthday and organized a group of friends without any mention of their birthday. What I have never seen is an adult who issues invitations ( by phone, email, Facebook I person, whatever) that substantially say “I’m inviting you to celebrate my birthday at the Astros game on July 8. Tickets are $5”. * " Let’s go to the Astro’s game on July 8" (which happens to be my birthday) isn’t quite the same.
- Which is the situation in the OP: “I’m inviting you to celebrate my daughter’s birthday at (venue). Admission is $12.” It’s not “We’re going to venue on date (that happens to be my daughter’s birthday), want to come along?” Because no one would be offended by that. In part because simply going to Chuck E Cheese does not carry the expectations that a gift should be given or that it is one child’s “special day” or that I shouldn’t also invite another friend who is unknown to the birthday child.
I also want to mention that when I was little, and my parties were at my very small home (because I’m old enough so there were no Chuck E Cheeses, or McDonalds, or Great Flags), my mother limited it to the number that would fit. She would tell me that I could invite five, or seven, or whatever friends, and that was it. We would play some games, have cake and ice cream, and say good-bye. An hour and a half was all it took.
You have the party you can afford.
If you expect your wedding to “break even”, you’re doing it wrong. It’s supposed to be an event at which you invite family and friends to share your happiness. If you’re losing out financially, have a less lavish event.
Yes.
At the end of the day, the bridal party needs to grasp the concept that a wedding is not about spending (x) money in order to receive (x) value gifts in return. The party is in celebration of the marriage. Getting gifts is a nicety and social norm, but it’s gauche to expect them.
As for showing up to a wedding with a gift, unless it’s a cultural thing, etiquette indicates you send the gift before or up to a year after the wedding, but not to the wedding itself.