Just curious. Daughter of a friend known her for 10 years now. I’m thinking 250. First time its nit for a direct sriend of mine…. how much would you spend?

I just give them hand made pieces of string of varying lengths.

Give as much as you can afford. Whatever you decide they’ll be happy.

£250 is a lot but if you can afford it, its no problem

£250? Are you an actual Earl?

Fi

eek is it? As I said – my first wedding where its not my direct friend. Bugger Now i wish I hadn’t asked.

I got friends of ours who were getting married an edible male g-string and edible g-string/bra set. I was informed 2 weeks later when i saw them next that they were the best wedding gift they had 😆

Can’t remember the cost but it wasn’t a huge amount

No one should make a profit from getting married (i.e. value of presents is more than the cost of the bash) and only idiots (or those with more money than imagination) spend a fortune on a wedding. Therefore I reckon circa £40 is a good max to spend on a wedding present (assuming two of you going with one present from the two of you).

250 quid of edible underwear – good call.

No one should make a profit from getting married (i.e. value of presents is more than the cost of the bash)

As someone getting married in two weeks I’m fairly convinced this isn’t physically possible. Unless you invite 5000 people and get married in a garden shed somewhere in the arse end of Grantham.

I’d be stunned if we ‘recoup’ 20% of the cost, and we’re not being lavish in any way! That’s not what it’s about though.

To answer the OP – personally I’d consider £100 generous, and £40-£50 more ‘normal’, I’m not you though.

£50 if it’s a full day invitation
£25 – £30 if an evening only invitation.

Whatever you can afford and think is appropriate. We were grateful for all of the gifts we received whether it was £10 or £150.

It’s more important to think about what the gift actually is, I think…

What Bunnyhop said.

A good gift might be a spade, a fork and watering can. Nobody thinks of gardening stuff – it’s all towels toasters and dinner sets!

….and as for those who have wedding lists…wow! How bloody arrogant is that?

….and as for those who have wedding lists…wow! How bloody arrogant is that?

Meh, it’s a guide (we don’t have one). Who wants 5 toasters? Nothing to stop you going off list. Last wedding we went to they asked for cash toward their honey moon which they’d already booked. That’s arrogant IMO.

Personally I don’t believe in wedding gifts or money. In the past it was a tradition to help a young couples leaving the parents home and starting from scratch and things for the home were given. Couples getting married now tend to be older and already living together and already everything so think we should pay for them to have a holiday the cheek! You’ve found someone to spend your life with which is so much cheaper than being single and if you want an expensive party to celebrate that that’s fine but don’t expect everyone else to pay for it! If I got married I would say no presents but charity if you like.

We asked for donations for The Langdale Mountain Rescue for presents.
We had about 100 guests all in, and got over £1000 in donations..

We got married recently. Some people spent a couple of hundred quid, some sent a card. There didn’t seem to be any real pattern I could see, just who could afford what I suppose. It was all gratefully received, from the kind words to the surprisingly generous. I wouldn’t sweat the value if I were you, that’s really not what it’s about.

£250 is a LOT to spend on someone who you aren’t that close to who’s marrying someone you probably don’t know at all.

I didn’t spend that on my only brother’s wedding present. (I’m not even sure I bought him anything actually 🙂 )

I’m going to a wedding on Sat and am giving £25.

I got married last year. we said we didn’t need presents (contributions of time and skills towards organising the wedding were preferred if possible!), but if anyone wanted to contribute to our honeymoon it would be gratefully received.

Typical present from friends was about £25, while aunts and uncles/people over 50 was nearer £100. We did the wedding fairly cheap & probably recouped about 70% of the cost of it….

i would’ve regarded £250 as extremely generous and would’ve felt quite awkward about it, but then it’s all context i guess. if you’re fairly comfortably off and so are your social group, then go for it, i’m sure it’d be appreciated, if surprising 🙂

For what it’s worth, I tend not to bargain myself down from my initial impulse on the amount I think I should spend. The impulse is very generous, and generosity is a virtue.

🙂

We asked for donations for The Langdale Mountain Rescue for presents.
We had about 100 guests all in, and got over £1000 in donations..

Fun fact – we looked at this, but people are massively less generous at donating to charity than when buying something for you. Case in point really – your guests donated less than £10 each, whilst Doris got at least 3 times that as an average. Funny really.

When we married – we specifically asked for nothing and thats what we got. However it was a 2 day trip to our destination.

I’m going to go with bigdummy – his answer makes me feel the best.

We’re just in the process of sorting our invites out now and will be specifically saying that we are not asking for nor do we expect any presents, we’ve invited only the people we actually want to be at our wedding and their attendance is all we want.

In the past when we’ve been to other people’s weddings we’ve given what we could afford, normally around the £35 mark in either money or item depending on what they wanted, but I personally don’t like the idea of being ‘expected’ to give a present or money. I’m far more likely to be generous because I want to than because I’ve been asked or it’s expected of me.

But, it’s all about what you want to do personally, if you want to give a present then do so, and do it to whatever value *you want* to, not what other people think is acceptable, £250 is very generous, but if you can afford it, and want to do it, then go for it, I’m sure they will be more than grateful!

I got married once. Can I have £250 please?

When two of our friends got married they published a wedding list that read like an ultimate toy list (flat screen telly, ps3, surf boards, bike lights) with nothing under £100. On their wedding night I know they got back to their room and spent the first couple of hours unwrapping presents – not what I thought you were meant to do on the first night! And the wedding was paid for 100% by parents despite being in their 30s with no reason not to pay for it themselves.

Never looked at them quite the same.

£250?- if a close friend gave me £50 I’d politely decline it. I’m getting married soon and I honestly don’t know why guests should pay a tax.

In the old days a wedding present was for people who had nothing, needed a whole house kitting out. Nowadays most people already have all the kit or are already living together hence any sort of gift should be a token gesture at best.

I’d like a nice bottle of wine- not expensive but one that the person giving considers their own favourite. MAX.

Its expensive enough buying outfits, travelling and hotel(s) for people with young children etc to get there.

the Greeks have a great idea, you should gift the cost of the meal, mind at a swanky greek wedding that could well be 250 quid. Their idea is that the couple shouldnt be worse off for celebrating their love with their nearest and dearest, so then they pin the bride with the cash and have a song and dance about it. The parents pay the bill and the couple should keep the cash. Its actually an unanswerable question in reality, it has to be appropriate for the couple and the event. That could be 50p or 250 quid.

Their idea is that the couple shouldnt be worse off for celebrating their love

The parents pay the bill and the couple should keep the cash.

Does not compute.

I’ve been to a few Turkish weddings (in Turkey) which have the same tradition – normally seems to be an excuse for pervy old men to see what they can get away with whilst pinning money on the bride! In reality though the married couple, by tradition, were barely out of their teens with sod all to their names so the money allows them to set up home – nothing to do with being out of pocket. The cost of the meal normally goes hand in hand with the socio economic group of the couple and the wedding party so quite a good tell for the amount of money given.

…and as for those who have wedding lists…wow! How bloody arrogant is that?

I see what you mean, however we ended up having a list after being badgered by family and friends, who wanted to give us a little something.

Our wedding list started with a 75p pastry brush and nothing was over £50.00 (this being a dinner service, where you could buy a plate or cup etc. separately).
I couldn’t believe how generous people were.

It should be the price of a meal – so “about” £50-£60 for the two of you if day guest, 20-25 ish for evening pauper only invite.
Mrs_s and I went to a wedding where (as an idea of the general whizziness of the wedding) the list included wine glasses at £80 each – a bunch of invitees clubbed together and bought them three.

You’ve found someone to spend your life with which is so much cheaper than being single…

Did he really say that? And no one questioned it? 😆

Every wedding I have been to has ended in divorce bar one.
One friend invited me to his third to which I replied “do you think I am made of wedding presents”.

Just take a tag and swap it with another on someone else’s gift.

thegreatape – Member
£250? Are you an actual Earl?

😀

To be honest, I’ve never bought a wedding present in my life. Didn’t even realise I was supposed to.

I generally think I’d get a gift about the cost of the meal…
I never really put a £££ value on gifts, just try to get something I think they’d like. Sometimes expensive, sometimes not. Those two statements are contradictory, but it’s all ballpark stuff

When we got married we didn’t do a list at a store. I coded a website so people could RSVp, pick their meal, find info on hotels and parking etc. We put a non-exclusive list of things on there that people could mark as bought (Anonymously) – phrased it as suggestions if people weren’t sure. No-one sprung for the jet ski I put at the top of the list, tightwads!

And no, I didn’t put any analytics on that site….

When friends in our group get married we just bung them some money (£50 or thereabouts) towards their honeymoon, help them make some happy memories, maybe dine in places they wouldn’t usually. Pointless buying gifts if they already have all they need.

The last wedding two weddings we went to they both had said no presents.
The first one was a Chinese couple so after doing some research I put £100 into an envelope with a card.
The second wedding was for an old friend in his late 40s – I got him one of those stainless steel Indian spice storage tins and included 7 different spices. That one actually took about 5 hours of running around to sort out. Ask the rest of their presents were bottles of champagne – I think they’ve still got a couple of cases left…

When we got married we did the wedding list thing, but had loads of items from a tenner up with nothing over 50. As we knew a lot of guests couldn’t afford much, my two best mates gave me cd racks that I still have.

My cousin recently got married and asked for money, which personally I wasn’t keen on.

As for the value close friends it depends in if they have a list but 50-100, family 25-50 other people max 25.

About £50.

Buy them a good quality duvet if it’s on the list of presents. This was without doubt the most used wedding present we received and it lasted over 10 years. Most of the rest was general detritus of life. Towels were returned to M&S, we had so many!

Tend to only go to friends’ weddings and it varies between £40 to £100. Eg might give a $100 bill if they’re going to USA for honeymoon.

Another one getting married soon.

We had no list , or desire for one, they can be very cringy.

After getting hassle from almost all the family for ideas we ended up putting up a website on a place called the gift of memories with a bunch of stuff from the honey moon , things like going to alcatraz , going mountain biking at mammoth, a baseball game etc, starting at about 10 dollars to a max of 50.

We didnt include this in the invitations and did say we dont expect anything and just your company is all how ever some people are just very insistant so we have given the website address to our parents for when family ask.

Last wedding i went to i ignored their list and got them a campagnolo BIG corkscrew. ( both keen cyclists and winedrinkers ) and its a timeless classic.

Wedding before that the list was hillarious. That got ignored again with many folk commenting that the stuff on the list was too expensive – cheapest item being about 150 quid. No individual items really , all sets.

The cynic in me says that was trying to recoup the cost of the wedding…oddly enough that relationship looks to be about to divorce already.