Money!!

That’s not fair to expect your guest to “pay back the money you spent”. We are having a small wedding (50 people) we will have spent right at 15,000 for everything including the honeymoon. We just want everyone to come and have a great time and help us celebrate our love for each other.

View Quoted Comment I personally feel like they had all those people purposely for them to get the money back 🤦🏾‍♀️

A wedding is not enough how much money to get back.

What?! How is that disrespectful?

View Quoted Comment Yeah uhm what??? I didn’t know people had weddings to get money back from their guests...

You clearly do not understand etiquette at all in the area. And it is a common misconception. People give gifts, according to how close they are to the couple, and their own budgets. This is traditional, to give the couple a start in life. Gifts are not even dependent on going to a wedding. Traditionally, people very close give gifts whether or not they go to a wedding, happiness for the couple. Until very recent years, except for a few smaller cultural groups, people have always given things, not money, with money most often only from older relatives. The rest, showers and wedding, things to use in the future. So maybe 100 wedding gifts, and 4-5 some cash or all. The money and gifts given has nothing to do with the actual gift. Someone who does not know you as well, maybe a coworker you also go to exercise class with properly may give you a cookbook or blender or something else in the $25-$60 range, while a very good friend might give a $200 in cost present, gift or some money, and closest family and friends, something they paid $300 for. .And a girlfriend of a groomsman or friend, may properly give a card with best wishes, and something with the value of a small hostess gift, $10-$20 . . . . The wedding is a completely separate thing. A couple can serve $200 punch and cookies for the whole group of refreshments, $3 per guest. They can have a $40 meal, $20 in beer and wine, and a fee venue and use an iPod for music, $70 per person. Or they can go all out, spend $100-$500 for every guest, including venue and photographer, food and drink, fancy club. . . How much to spend on a wedding is the couple or family choice, they are hosts, entertaining. It has nothing to do with how much money or gifts they get from guests, which still depends on only how close to the couple they are and the giver's own budget. Well-off people are more likely to have something expensive in the kind of party they give, and may have more rich friends and family who give more expensive gifts. But people not super close, not well off, still give the same gift of $50 for a $5 per person wedding as a $100 per person wedding or a $300 per person wedding. . . .It is a mistake to think that people will give as much in gifts as a wedding costs. And it depends on the social group whether you get all physical gifts and no money at all, or some gifts and some money. The one who gives the gift decides. It is not up to the couple to decide what they get. It is considered rude to ask anyone for money as a gift, whether for a birthday or a wedding. And a registry is only a list of suggestions for those who want ideas. They are not a shopping list for guests or non-guests. So choosing oricier things or asking for lots of money gifts, will not necessarily get you any more, just more items off registry if people do not want to spend as much as the gifts you put on the registry. If you put 50 items $100-$500 on a registry, and your friends can only afford to give $50, ten of them together may give you a big registry gift, or you may get dozens of gifts or small kitchen or household things, not any money and not anything from a registry. . . Gift giving is highly promoted by the manufacturers of items and the stores who sell them. Articles they pay to have written, and websites like WW and the knot, get all of their money from advertising and promoting buying of things, and services, made for homes or giving parties, and clothing and other specialty items. And food and lodgings and entertainment . So all the advertising and 80% of the things you see and hear are strictly to promote sales. They push the idea that if you throw a fancy party, people will of course want to give you more. But that is not correct. If you spend more on a fancy party, you may not get any more in gifts or money than if you spend $20 per person. People only spend the money they can afford. They do not " cover their plate", that is, give as much as you spend on them. . . . If you invite a hundred friends and family very close to you, and and 10 not so close, versus 100 close and 100 you do not see a lot, the extra 90 people will all give lower price gifts because they hardly know you or see you, if they are average working people. You may spend $10, 000 more on the wedding to add those 90 people, but if none feel close or spend much because of that, you may receive $2000 total value in gifts, none money. Or 45 bottles of $10 wine with really nice cards, though you spent $10,000 on them. . . . Couples should not throw bigger or more expensive weddings with any expectations of getting back in gifts what they spent, unless the total cost of the wedding is $30 per person or less, unless every guest has lots of spare money to throw around. . . Small guest lists, where everyone you invite is a close friend or family, no one you do not regularly see, and their SO, will all give you bigger gifts by far than anyone you casually know, or relatives you rarely see. . . . This is not what TV shows, which are advertiser supported, or websites like the knot and Wedding Wire, also advertiser and industry promoted, want you to think. But it is real life.

View Quoted Comment She purposely had all them come because of that. That’s why I think it’s disrespectful

View Quoted Comment Maybe I worked it wrong , I think her inviting all those people thinking she’s getting money back was disrespectful. Not that they didn’t give them anything. If you knew his cousin you would understand just how selfish she can be

View Quoted Comment You didnt word it wrong. You're changing your stance based on the feedback you've gotten...

I think it's a selfish and ungrateful mindset to think that you'll get all or most of your money back from wedding guests.
Host a wedding that you can afford and won't regret spending the money. Be thankful that whoever showed up came out to support on your big day. Gifts, however they may come, are a bonus.

You said you think it’s disrespectful they only got that much back and now you’re saying it’s disrespectful that they expected money? That’s not wording something wrong. That’s a 180 on your opinion because people told you it’s rude to expect guests to pay back the amount you’re spending.

Lol. So... This happened

Lol 😂 I have never heard of guess paying back for the money you spend on your wedding that is hilarious.. when you have a wedding you invite people to have a great time and enjoyed the unity of 2 people. we spend $20,000 on our wedding and I was not expecting for my guests to pay any money back to me .we wanted to pay that much it was our wedding and all We wanted was for our guess to have a great time with us.

Did she get physical gifts from any guests? The point of a wedding is not to get cash or gifts, that seems like a weird thing to say. If she wanted to keep the $10,000, she could have just not had a wedding. We are spending far more than that on our wedding and don't expect for anyone to gift us cash. It will be nice if they do, but certainly not an expectation or something we will be mad at if it doesn't happen.

I fervently wish we could divorce (ha!) the act getting married from the expectation of gifts. But I guess that would decrease the number of posts in this forum by 40%.

I disagree with some of these comments. I am not even expecting to get half of our money back, but it’s rude to not bring a gift. Do you go to a birthday party and not bring anything? On average, her guests have her not even $3 each. I am from a different culture but it seems like it’s normal here for guests to not bring anything? We always give at least $100 each when we go, I would be embarrassed to not give anything or something so cheap.

View Quoted Comment I think it is kind of rude to invite more guests to a wedding to get more in money or gifts. If that was their intention, it backfired. There is no reason a whole bunch of people not close enough to invite as truly valued guests, not a source of money, would care much more about the couple than the couple did of them. Couple wants to clean up on extra gifts. Guests who come to the wedding of people they do not know or feel close enough to to justify getting much of a gift, want to be there for the party though they don't care much for the guests of honor. Sounds like a 2 way lack of respect. This is often the result, also, when some relatives push a couple to invite lots of friends of the parents who barely know the couple, or family they have not had anything to do with for 5-10 years. Guests k ow they are tacked on but not wanted. The should decline. But they come, and bring a gift that reflects just how much they care for the couple: Not much. . . . I had a college roommate who invited twice as many people as planned, when her parents and his agreed to pay for the wedding. They said, more guests = more gifts for us. And so what if it doubles the costs, parents pay the costs, couple gets no bills, just gifts. That would be 3 way disrespect, to me.

While I can see the issue it shouldn't be an expectation to make the entire wedding cost back. Solely based on what I gift friends for a wedding is about ($100-200) and I am not sure what the appropriate standard of a monetary gift is these days (higher than it was when our parents got married). I do find it odd only $400 came out of 160 guests. Were there many physical gifts? There is also a standard time frame (a couple months) after a wedding where it is appropriate to still give a gift. Maybe they are waiting, idk.

View Quoted Comment

There are people out there who at least have the expectation to make back what they spent on food and/or alcohol from people. Which could be $100 per person. $100 per couple is decent enough I would think. Honestly my FH's friend who didn't have a registry and I asked FH to ask if he did, the friend said they just hoped to get the money back from people for the plate of food which was $100 from us as a unit. The whole wedding for sure is probably not possible to gain back but all in all I would never show up to a wedding without a gift. And a high amount of her guests rudely did so, or might be waiting to give a gift idk.

I definitely understand what you’re saying. Their are a lot of people like that out there ! They hear a Wedding a lot of people take it as free eating free drinking and why not it’s really sad but it happens all the time