What does price per person mean to you?

I am not being so bold as to say NO GIFTS, which friends of mine did last year, but I have put the word out that gifts are entirely optional. I want the people that I invited to come at my wedding, if they give me everything, or nothing at all, I swear that I will be okay with it. These are the people that I love, that have been there with me through thick and thin. I couldn't imagine my life with out them, kind of love. If I get a dime or nothing as a wedding gift. I could care less.

Most of the time it means cost of food and drinks, I'm not an alcohol person but I've found out just exactly how much that can cost. Ugh!!! We've gotten everything broken down per person for us including out cake thrown in to the cost but I would never expect anyone to cover the cost of the plate ever! That's just crazy to me, it's how I grew up though.

This whole 'give a gift equal to the plate' is so absurd, you should give a gift based on your personal finances and relationship with the bride and groom, who cares if the wedding was 10k or 60k, and how would you know how much it costs in the first place, and who are all these people waiting until after the wedding to buy gifts, you have to make sure you had fun at the wedding before you buy someone a gift?? You wouldn't go to someones birthday party without a gift or card why would you go to a wedding??

cost per person is total divided by guest, food cost per person is cost of plate...

Funny..my mom who I think gifts very generously at weddings I think has decided since helping to plan and pay for mine that she should pay even more generously at weddings and that what she was paying before was not enough.

My aunt said that she figured she was paying roughly 100 per person for the wedding (but that doesn't really seem possible if your just talking food and drink cost). Our wedding is 27 per person for food and about 10-15 per person for drinks but the wedding total spent is roughly 20,000-30,000 so that would be roughly 100 per person.

I might be the only one but I would not be comfortable receiving a cash gift from anyone other than the parent/grandparent set. In the past I have given gift cards to couples from their registered stores but that's about as close as I come to giving actual money. Honeymoon registries seem like a good idea but when I researched them more I realized you just get paid cash...it's not like the guest gives their card to the hotel for a spa service, that I would be ok with.

As for the per head cost I can see where it might just cover for and drinks but I do think it depends on the venue and what's included. My caterer is handling my rentals so their bill will include them.

I think the per cost included anything that changes depending on the number of guests. Photography and DJ don't change so they wouldn't be included but things like linens and centerpieces are since I will need more of more guests choose to attend...I just added on two tables to my order since it's looking like a higher yes response than I originally planned.

Edit to say I'm from California and our wedding is in Napa/Sonoma wine country

I don't think this is an 'east coast" custom. I think it's a country wide 'custom' that happens on a sporadic basis. And it still doesn't make any sense.

I'm from mn and I have never heard of any one giving for how much the pp could of been. It really depends on the guest. In how well they know the couple, how much they make and how generous they usually are. To me pp depends on what the question is. If it's about food it would cover all the food, cake and all drinks including alcohol. My wedding would be around $12/person. If the question was how much was your wedding pp it would be around $45.

To Vendors it means whatever they include in their services, which will be outlined in their contract, normally its for decor and tables linens etc.

To us it means how much are you going to shaft us financially? HA

Regionally I havent seen it, To me it means my final total, then divided by the guest number.

Omg i had no idea about ppp,,i went to a wedding whuch by the way ny boy friend was a froom man.i gave the couple a lovely vase now im wondering if they thought i was cheap,

Cost per person means food drink and favors to me.

My son got maeried last year.they recieve all different amounts of cash gifts from tge guest,im from MD i never heard of a guest payibg for their food and drinks.

This thread totally confused me. When I am looking at venues and I see a pp cost I thought it was for the meal. Am I wrong? And why do guests leave money to pay for their meal. I have never been to a wedding here so I have no clue about this stuff. Can someone please explain it to me?

Another PA gal, and the per person cost here is the venue, meal and drinks. I honestly don't remember the last time I saw gifts at a wedding, just cards. Gifts are usually given at the bridal showers.

I don't like the" cover your plate" idea either. I have a set of guidelines I use when determining the amount of the gift. If it's family, or someone very close to me I'll give a little more than someone whom I barely know, but somehow got invited to their wedding. Also, I feel like I should give a little more if it's at a country club, fancy hotel ballroom, or somewhere like that. Anyway, I never give less than $100.00 per person, and since I'm at the age where our kids are all getting married, my friends talk about this a lot and $100. seems to be the average size of the gift.

In our experience, the vendor may set different rules, whether it is a venue or caterer. If the vendor is supplying the centerpieces and the food, then yes, centerpieces are included in the price they are charging per person because the more people , the more centerpieces needed.

EXAMPLE: your venue is supplying the food and centerpieces in-house and you are paying them per person. They have round tables that seat 8 people. you have 80 people= 10 tables= 10 centerpieces .

they include the centerpiece cost in your per person price that includes each person's seat at each table. They are charging you for everything at each table. you can ask them to give you a breakdown of each item to make it clear exactly what the centerpieces cost as a whole. I hope this helps

@Carr, depending on the venue the per person cost can include food, drinks, venue space rental, centerpieces, cake, linens, etc from what I gather here during the discussion. I think the best way to figure out what the per person cost at a venue include is to ask a representative there. So you may not be wrong with the pp cost meaning the meal, that is what I thought before too but not anymore after reading the responses to this discussion.

In response to your other question about leaving money to pay for their meals, it is not set in stone for the most part. When I say for the most part, it is because most people don't like it or used it as a hard set rule here. But I have seen at least one discussion on here before where someone got called out for not covering their meal which I thought was completely rude especially since the person who got called out was completely new to the office and got invited 1-2 weeks prior. I think it was graycatvintage's friend but I don't remember for sure.

Hope I answered your questions.

@ Care Bear, yes you did. Thank you so much, that really cleared it up for me. I am learning a lot on here.

I am in Minnesota; I had never heard of this gifting "strategy" until I was on this website. My family and friends mostly gave around $30-40 gifts, and my fiance is from a family with a higher income and gives around $50-$200 gifts depending on how close they are to the couple.

I would, however, consider price per person to be food and drink cost only. I have a lovely venue that may appear to cost over $50-75/person, but it's only about $27/person (hence why I chose it). I would hope people wouldn't spend more based on such assumptions.

I'm also from the east coast and price per person to me includes food and drink... I have a co-worker who tries to cover what she think the price per plate is - she told me she typically would give about $30-$40...

When I went to a wedding last month, my FMIL said I shouldn't give less than $100. I thought that was a reasonable amount bc even if they only paid $50 for my plate, there are other expenses that go into a wedding as well. I would feel silly giving someone $35 for their wedding simply bc they only paid $35 to feed me. I know with the wedding I went to last month, she didn't even come close to breaking even and she invited 140 guest.

ETA: I spend about $35 for baby shower gift, so I would want to give more for a wedding. I spent about $50 for my friend bridal shower, so I wouldn't give less than that for her wedding. I do not go to a lot of wedding. When my coworker said she only gives about 30-40 I thought that was low (this was before I even started planning my wedding).

@Carr, no problem. I am learning a lot here too!

It depends. Our caterer has a price per person for the food only ( doesn't include servers, plates, silverware or service charge). Our venue has an average total per person that includes rentals, decor, bartenders, bar service charge, rental fee but no DJ or photographer. And the actual bar set up costs has a per person depending on the type of bar (full, wine & beer, or non alcoholic) I was pretty pissed when I found out the catering per person didn't include servers or plates ......