<p>We never give cash. When we were students we gave gifts our student budgets could afford. Now that we tend to be giving gifts to kids in my husband’s lab or department we spend more. 
If we were investment bankers, I’m sure we’d spend still more. There’s no one right amount. We tend to get things they are registered for.</p>
<p>I get “crap” from my mom and my sister all the time for being “cheap” and not spending “my moldy money”. I showed my sister my quicken spreadsheet (Yes I am dorky enough to track all of my stuff in Quicken ) for last month and she was like “my gosh you make that much???” when she saw the income portion and they she looked at the expenses part and she was like “my gosh you spent that much??” She doesn’t seem to realize that just because I won’t go to the mall with her every weekend doesn’t mean I am a tight wad. She just doesn’t seem to get that people have expenses like insurance and gas and food and student loans and cell phones and such and that it takes a lot of money to pay for such things… (it also helped that my 400 dollar pair of glasses were on that months statement, haha) not that I didn’t have a good amount of money left over as savings after everything was paid, but I think she was definitely seeing a new light as far as how much money I actually do spend in a month and hopefully will be a little bit nicer about it.</p>
<p>Old fuddy-duddy view:
A wedding is a celebration of the marriage, not an opportunity to shake down guests. The guests should be invited because they are important to the new couple or their parents, so they can share in the celebration of this important event. The scale and cost of the event should be within the means of the people financing the wedding. The gifts that are given to the new couple are given freely and are entirely separate from the cost of the wedding.</p>
<p>Harrumph.</p>
<p>I had never heard the ‘cover the plate’ idea until I read it here on CC in a previous discussion. One of my Ds is getting married next summer and I would never dream of expecting that of a guest. How would the guests even know what ‘the plate’ costs? The people we’re inviting are family and friends who are close to my H and me, and to my D. We’ll all be thrilled if they are able to come. Any gift will be icing on the cake, so to speak, and secondary to the fact that they’ll be there to share the day with our family.</p>
<p>I don’t think we’ve ever been to a wedding where we weren’t very close to either the bride, groom, or their parents so we usually would spend a few hundred dollars on something from their registry. One bride whom we had known since she was a baby (and whose parents are some of our closest friends), felt like a member of the family and so we probably doubled our usual spending. We always buy a gift, though. We’ve never given cash as a gift.</p>
<p>doubleplay, $100/guest would be low in our area. The venue my D and her fiance chose will be $160/guest, and that’s not the most expensive one they looked at.</p>
<p>I think you are just getting to know the wild, wacky world of weddings at your age. So give yourself a break, figure that older/wealthier/closer-in relatives might be in the wings to help the darling young couple finance their mortgage. You’re an age-mate and a friend, travelling to get there solo (so in a way it costs you more to travel “per” than a couple driving in together). </p>
<p>Give what you can afford but don’t overdo it. You have an excuse based on youth. If you want to make up for it or feel sketchy/cheap about it, then put some TIME and EFFORT (not money) into a creative gift such as that recipe book. For example, ask her mom if she has some dusty old VHS tapes of her sitting on the family bookshelves and burn them onto CD’s. It’s time-consuming but helpful to the family archives, maybe something cute to play to her new spouse…be creative.</p>
<p>Of course if you organize some family heirlooms like that for them, be SURE to follow through, don’t lose anything, safeguard the items and so on. My SIL made me a needlepoint pillow with 2 pandas that I still adore after 25 years, long after I can’t remember what others gave me. I knew she put time and effort into that craft, and I had other gifts so I wasn’t neglected or anything.</p>
<p>i’ve worked at various retail stores and it always seems pretty popular to just, you know, buy one or more things from their registry and have items sent to their house. buy as much as you want! supplement with cash if necessary.</p>
<p>cash is definitely a great idea, but it sure is fun to stop by the newlyweds’ house and sleep in the guest bed that you bought the linens for.</p>
<p>or maybe i’m just a creep that likes slightly sentimental things?</p>
<p>Congratulations, alwaysamom! Planning a wedding is a lot of work. Good luck to your daughter and her fiance.</p>
<p>I had also never hear of the “cover your plate” theory of gift giving before reading it on CC. I like to give a place setting of the china the couple selects. I know that some couples prefer cash, but I’d rather give them something that lasts longer. I also don’t understand how anyone could know how much the reception costs per person, unless the family tells everyone!</p>
<p>I thought the same. How does one know how much they’re paying per head?</p>
<p>Gift giving is a personal thing, and I think that whether it be a cash gift or not depends on the relationship of the gift-giver to the marrying couple. I’ve received both, and given both.</p>
<p>Sidetrack on the same topic:
What should be expected (or not) regarding thank-you notes? I was invited to all the pre-wedding and wedding plans for the child of a good friend of mine. Engagement announcement party, showers, wedding, etc. Each time I attended an event, I brought a gift. Not once did I receive any thank-you note or even acknowledgement. I don’t need one, but it is helpful to know that they received the gift! For all I know, they are thinking what tightwads we are, because they never received anything from us. Do I just ignore it, or would it be acceptable to at least mention to my friend that I was concerned whether or not the children ever received their gift(s)?</p>
<p>Same question here, KJ, mailed a wedding gift last spring and no thank you note- luckily the MOG mentioned it arriving or I would be wondering if they had even received it. I know they have a year, technically, to do thank you notes for wedding gifts, but I do find myself a bit judgemental of the the couple- in the same way that some people seem to keep score on the value of gifts :eek: I am aware of the rudeness of no acknowledgement. Some thing happened with a nephew in the early 90s, never a thank you note.</p>
<p>I would not be so obsessive about it, but I had a baby gift deliverd via a large department store about 20 years ago and it was never received. Had the grandma never asked me about it, the family would have thought I sent nothing and I would have thought they did not thank me- instead we learned UPS mis-delivered it, and the dept store sent a replacement. Since then, I am less hesitant to ask if it was received, but still annoyed at the rudeness.</p>
<p>I think “cover the plate” DOES apply to certain kinds of invitations and not to others. I have a huge extended family. Some of my cousins have invited me to their children’s weddings, and in some cases, I haven’t seen the cousin in years and have literally never met the person getting married. I know in some cases, I get invited because they want to invite my sister (who lives locally) and think I may be offended if she is invited and I’m not. Or I might be invited to the wedding of an office colleague for much the same reason–it’s a small office and they don’t want to hurt the feelings of a few people if the majority in the office is included. So, in those cases, I DO follow the “cover the plate” rule. Here in NYC, the cost is close to $250 per person, and I am NOT talking anything elaborate. Heck, the cost of renting the church I attend for PARISHIONERS is $1,000. The organist–you are required to use the church’s if you use one at all–is $500. </p>
<p>If I think I would enjoy going and accept the invitation, I DO “cover the plate.” (It may not be with cash. If you buy something from a registry, the amount you paid is known.) If I am NOT willing to do that, I decline and send a more modest gift.</p>
<p>However, if the wedding is one for which I clearly should be invited, then I don’t feel compelled to cover the plate–perhaps in part because people closer to me are more likely to know if I can’t. While I give a nice gift, I feel less compelled to cover the plate. That’s especially true of second marriages, where older couples may invite a small number of people but then put on an incredible affair for that small number.</p>
<p>“I thought the same. How does one know how much they’re paying per head?”</p>
<p>Someone generally spreads the word. </p>
<p>If you give a gift from the registry at the wedding, what do you give for the bridal shower?</p>
<p>We start at $100/couple. If they are good friends/relatives we go $250 or so.</p>
<p>kjofkw and somemom: A thank you note for an engagement, shower or wedding gift is ALWAYS appropriate. Any couple who can’t take the time to write a thank you are thoughtless. In the past, if I haven’t rec’d a note within 6 months, I have called and said “I am worried my gift was lost since I have not rec’d a note from you.” I hope the bride/groom are appropriately embarrassed - as they should be.</p>
<p>As for the amount of a gift, if I don’t really know the couple that well, I get something from their registry. Even if they have everything, I get a duplicate. They can return it and get something else they want. They obviously like the store or wouldn’t have registered there. For couples I know well, I also try to use the registry and if I can’t find something I really like ($75-100 range) I will get a gift card from that same store. That way, they get what they want. For family or very close personal friends, we give something more personal and it depends on the relationship. </p>
<p>If I am really stumpted and have to give cash, we give in increments of $18. 18 is the hebrew letter Chai, which means life. It makes choosing the amount easier…$18/$36/$54/$72/$90</p>
<p>That’s so interesting about the Chai! I’ll have to remember that. Thanks!</p>
<p>Chai, double-Chai, triple-Chai, etc. can be used for any life-cycle event. Bar/Bat Mitzvah, Graduation, new baby, etc.</p>
<p>When D graduated high school, she had about 6 very close girl friends…and we were friends with their parents. I sent each a card with $18. It was meaningful and you can’t buy much for under $20 these days!</p>
<p>Can’t do Chai and a half? :D</p>
<p>Curious about all the score-keepers- what do you do when family member do not gift or gift well- say your brother does not give grad gifts or gives tiny wedding gifts? Do you give their kids YOUR usual value gift or do you match the gift level given so as to not make them feel badly? If you do not give them YOUR usual level gift do you feel like you are being cheap or retaliatory or do you feel like you are being kind and not causing the recipient to feel badly??</p>
<p>fendergirl- I don’t think anyone would expect for you at your age to give the same type of gift as someone older and more established. One thing you could also do is go in on a more expensive gift with several other cousins. </p>
<p>We are at the point in our life that the baby showers are over but the weddings haven’t started.</p>