When I got married, I was absolutely set against a wedding list, as was my (now) wife.
Leading up to the wedding, we had loads of nagging from people as to what we wanted as a gift, and no amount of persuasion would convince them against buying us *something*… so we relented, and made a John Lewis list of stuff that we would like (note, we didn’t *need* anything) and stressed in the invitations that we wanted people to come along – presence not presents etc., but if they did want to buy something, then buy something off this list so we’ll actually use it.
Our wedding was very rural, with everyone staying over for the whole weekend. We paid for half the accommodation cost, gave loads of wine with the meal, and paid for half the bar bill in the evening.
Hopefully no-one thought we were fleecing them on what was the absolute best day of my life so far.
That said, I would have felt very uncomfortable asking for money, and could never have gone face to face with my guests requesting their cash 😯
Dave