I just have to ask- whose weddings are you going to where neither you nor your spouse/SO/“plus one” don’t know anyone in the bride’s family, anyone in the groom’s family or *any *of their closest friends ( who are usually in the bridal party) ?
And in my experience, weddings with 150 guests have bridal showers - and it’s not tacky to provide all sorts of registry and other gift info with the invitations for those as showers are thrown by people other than the bride and groom for the express purpose of giving gifts.
It doesn’t sound like this is someone that you should spend a lot of time and effort on picking out a nice gift for; a nice card with what you feel is an appropriate amount of cash* inside would probably be the right way to go for this particular person.
*If it feels appropriate, it could be a nice, crisp ten dollar bill. Or less. 
It should never feel appropriate to intend that someone be hurt or offended by your gift. If giving a small amount of money as a gift is supposed to signal your disapproval, as if the giftee is a shitty waitress, then… Bein Classy: ur doin it wrong.
Theres nothing wrong with giving small sums or no gift at all. But being intentionally hurtful via gifting is an order of magnitude more classless than asking for cash, bad poem or no.
Coworkers - especially those where the wedding party is bride + groom + maid of honor (bride’s sister) + best man (groom’s brother).
Old college friends with the above.
Etc.
Just because I know someone well enough to get a wedding invite doesn’t mean they’ve introduced me to their family or that I run in the same circles as their wedding party. I’m surprised this isn’t the case for more people.
you have been doing a good bit howling thus far, over what again? You standing in supreme judgement of how your “friends” chose to handle their gift requests for their wedding. Were you potty trained at gunpoint? perhaps its a cultural thing
It’s apparently not all that common in my area to invite coworkers to weddings. In fact, the only weddings I know of where coworkers were invited were two of my husband’s coworkers at the same company, and it was the sort of company where my husband actually did know members of their families because they also worked there.
Usually, putting gift information on the wedding website is considered OK for etiquette purposes. However, since going to the website was required to RSVP for the wedding, it could be considered an extension of the invitation, and thus we find ourselves in a gray area.
I’d probably look the other way in this case. They did mention cash but also stated that a gift would be fine as well. I wouldn’t choose to do it this way, but it’s hardly worth trashing a friendship over.
My wife and I didn’t include any registry/gift information in our invitations, and didn’t have a website, yet received mostly items from our registry. People contacted us, or more frequently our parents/wedding party to get the scoop on gifts. The notion that if you don’t include registry information with your invite that you’re going to get eight toasters is, IMHO, completely off base.
Using an online “calculator” that is supposed to help one figure out how much money to give people for weddings, apparently the correct amount is for them to give ME $30!
I’d just be satisfied with a nice toaster though. Perhaps I’ll register!
My parents were purposely unattached to the local culture, did not share a cultural background, and rejected their own cultural upbringings, thus I am something of a cultural outsider. My friends are not from one particular culture, my significant other panics at the thought of gift-giving, and none of us are religious.
I don’t like them anymore, so what’s the other poem?
Meh. I used to get all miffed about it, now I just shrug. If the couple tells me directly or indirectly that they prefer cash, then that’s fine with me. At least I don’t have to pay for shipping.
Eh, I kinda understand the OP. I hate giving cash and gift cards for any occasion. i do it, because some people make it clear that money is really what they want, but it robs gift-giving of what is to me the essence of it: Showing my affection for someone by finding them something they will cherish.
The essence of gift giving is showing your affecting by finding something you hope they’ll cherish but will probably be stuffed in a closet for three years and then donated to Goodwill.
If finding gifts is hard to do,
Mah routing number’ll surely do!
I’ll just pour that cashish down your well
while you just two-step there a-spell.
(Its $50 a pole-dance there as well?)
A toaster’s all you’ll get, alas,
May it toast your buns! (& chap your ass)
Wait, you’re still out a toaster!
Back to the old drawing board…
Very nice!
I don’t mind shelling out for a toaster. Maybe I’ll tuck a fifty in by the heating element so it will catch on fire if they ever actually use it. You can’t put a price on spite!
I’m really not sure I should do a third… 
Its the flavor you know she likes… 
I’m not normally THIS guy but…
I think we did this exact thread, from scratch, literally 2 or 3 weeks ago didn’t we?
Must be June.
You’ve omitted any location data from your profile. What’s wrong with your “local culture”? Wrong color?
I think I’m going to have to add that to my future sig line file.