I guess I’m an outlier. I don’t really have a problem with setting up a honeymoon registry or whatever you call it, as long as it’s in lieu of other gifts. It seems like just an update on the traditional gift registry. A young person I work with had something (I did not see it, but it was described to me). They were going to Las Vegas for their honeymoon. You could choose to buy them a drink at the bar, fund all or part of show tickets, things like that. I thought it was creative.
ETA - I had a very tiny second wedding, but several people got us gifts. The one I remember most is a sailing day at our honeymoon resort.
Regarding post #8 – Wondering if it ever occurred to Dylan’s Roof’s sister that if one wanted to make a donation for the injustice of the Charleston shooting, that donation might be to the families of the victims? This woman is truly misguided.
Still very uncommon, but definitely a “thing.”
I have zero problem with honeymoon registries or asking for cash gifts in lieu of boxed gifts (as I spread that message for my own wedding). Most people live together long before getting married now and they just don’t need more “stuff”… with that said, have the wedding you can afford rather than propping it up with “donations”
I am fine with registries where only the friends and guests of the couple can see what’s requested. Sites like GoFundMe, as I understand, are public - it is OK to ask strangers for help out of desperation, but it is tacky, IMO, to open your request for gifts to everyone to see.
Ugh. I would have died of embarassment before canvassing people for money. A wedding is a celebration of joy shared with your friends and family, there to bear witness to the start of shared life together. How does asking other people to pay for your vacation signify the start of that? We didn’t do/buy things we couldn’t pay for, an amazingly antiquated notion these days.
Good grief, I’m that grumpy old stone-throwin’ lady…
I don’t see the difference between a honeymoon fund vs gofundme–both of them are asking specifically for money that the recipients will use for whatever they want. I’m not comfortable with it (seems wrong to ask for $$$ this way). Can’t explain it, but then I’m 63 so It might be an age thing.
Anyway–I’ve been to a number of weddings in the last few years and I just write a check when there is no registry and there is one of these fund requests. At least I can buy a card and write something personal and the couple gets the $$$. My D didn’t have this, but she did have a registry. She and my son-in-law paid for their honeymoon themselves–they were both working professionals.
My niece did something like this. She and her fiance will live in a tiny apartment in a HCOL area, and they already have more stuff than will fit. Hers was worded something like - we know many will have to incur travel expenses to attend our wedding, and your presence is the only gift we could expect. But for those who keep asking, there is a honeymoon fund, at this link.
It was fine with me. I do have to travel, don’t really know their taste, and now I know for sure I got them exactly what they wanted.
I think that’s fine. As I said, it sounds like this gofundme is to pay for the wedding, aside from any sort of gifts. Which is different.
Presuming one invites family and friends to their wedding, the guests should know whether the couple needs things or cash. If the gift registry is limited and the couple is older with an established home, most guests can figure out that they prefer cash. One doesn’t need to come right out and ask for it. And sometimes cash requests create a hardship on the guest. Maybe they’re short on cash and planned to buy the gift on credit. Or perhaps they found a wonderful gift at a great sale. Cash is lovely when it’s a gift, not an expectation.
I will never, ever understand why people get so uptight about people being upfront with what they want. If I buy a gift for someone, I want to get them something THEY’D enjoy… not something I think they’d enjoy. The gift is about the receiver, IMO, not the giver.
If you don’t want to give a gift (whatever form), then don’t. I’d say only half of the people at my wedding gave gifts- and that’s fine by me. The real gift was them being there to celebrate with us- anything else was just frosting. But I’d rather get nothing than get a gift that I don’t want and don’t want to have to figure out how to return or give away (we ended up giving some wedding gifts to charity because we couldn’t figure out how to return them and it wasn’t worth the $20 to keep investing time into it)
Of course you want to give a gift that the couple wants and will enjoy. Hence the registry or discerning that cash is preferred. Your guests are presumably close enough to you or someone in your family to be invited so they should have a good idea of what it is you want. Or at least be in a position to figure it out. I guess I’m just old fashioned and find it impolite to directly tell someone what to give as a gift.
Romani - I agree that the best gift is having your friends and family with you to celebrate the wonderful occasion.
If that’s what the couple wants, I would have no problem in contributing to their honeymoon in lieu of a present. I give cash most of the time for weddings anyway. My nephew is getting married next year. I know they will be moving to few more apartments (cities) before they really settle down, so less is more when it comes to stuff. I will most likely give them cash to do what they will. Who knows, maybe they will spend it on their honeymoon.
I don’t understand why people have such a stigma about giving cash.
To me there’s a difference between giving cash as a wedding present (which I often do) and couples asking me to fund their honeymoon through Gofundme. Do I expect that my cash gift might defray honeymoon expenses? Quite possibly. But there’s a tonal difference. I guess, to me, it’s akin to a wedding invitation saying send checks to this address. I guess it’s generational.
I don’t think people have a issue with giving cash. Sometimes it is just more practical. It’s how it is worded on an invite or how the message comes across. Sometimes the weddings are so large that the couple doesn’t know all the guests. (friends of parents who may not know the couple well. )
I attended a wedding where the couple wrote that we have been blessed with everything and would appreciate your presence. In lieu of gifts you can donate to this charity. The couple were both lawyers who had decided to settle in Canada. I am sure some of the attendees who wanted to give something must have put checks in cards for them.
Ugh. NO! Everyone is NOT doing this. Talk about tacky.
Gofundme is appropriate for victims of fire or disease or something. Not for every single want a person might have.
+1 what #7 said.
People have a right to do this, but I would have strongly discouraged this if D and her fiance had mentioned doing it. Thankfully they are not. It’s tacky.
@Romani I really do think that there’s an age/generational difference on how people view these things. When I got married (35 years ago this fall), no one had honeymoon funds or gofundme. Cash, at least in my working class immigrant family, was perfectly fine. Times change; I recognize that. I have no problem giving cash.
No…everyone is not raising money to fund their weddings or honeymoons.
BUT there are many who are getting married a bit older than in the past. They might already own houses, have furnishings and the like…and really don’t need or want gifts.
We usually give money, and a small gift.
If I was that couple, and already had all household things I needed or had room for, I would try and get the word out that we had plenty of stuff, because I know its tacky to say no gifts, and I dont think Ive ever been invited to a wedding that mentioned no gifts.
If you can’t afford a splashy honeymoon, you don’t book one, if you can’t afford the catering per plate for a large wedding, you adjust venue and guest list until you can. Expecting others to pay for your personal needs because you do not yet have the means for the lifestyle to which you want to become accustomed is not my concern.
You can certainly * accept* cash, if someone really wants to give it to you, but don’t ask for it.
I am currently however, contributing to a gofundme for a local artist, whose dog ( an 8yr old australian sheperd), apparently got into poison, or ate a poisoned animal, and is deathly ill.
http://ryanhenryward.com
I have been following his career with great interest, as he is very talented, but also has been struggling with homelessness and schizophrenia over the years, although he seems to be doing much better lately, and I expect his dog provides a great deal of support.
But outside of crisis situations, I don’t hand out money. Having to drive to Yosemite, instead of fly to Cancun, isn’t a crisis.
My parents were married 61 years ago. They were young and poor, and had about $10 to their names on the day they got married. They planned a honeymoon to a place about 3 hours away, made a reservation and all, but had no money to pay for it. My father assumed people would give them cash at the wedding, which they did. It was not in lieu of a gift, but just a tradition that (mostly) men would give the groom $5 or $10 or if very generous, $20 in cash. That funded their honeymoon, but of course they were going to an inexpensive hotel at a resort area for 2-3 days, not a trip to Hawaii or Paris or Jamaica. Now getting $5 or $10 at the wedding is not going to help the couple plan for a big bucks trip, but I don’t think it is appropriate to have a Go Fund Me. A honeymoon registry where people buy a dinner or an experience is better, if you ask me.
My friends had several options: a traditional registry, an option to contribute to trees they were planning on planting in their yard, or 3 charities that they support that you could make a donation in their honor. I thought these were pretty good options as they had a rather small house, they were older so each had their own crap, and they each had elderly parents and would inherit even more crap when the parents died. There really was quite an assortment of thing as many of their guests where from around the world so rejected these options and did their own things, some were artists and did their own things, and some just did what they wanted anyway.
Maybe 40 years ago a cousin got married and long before it was the ‘in’ thing to do, she requested cash so that they could buy a mobile home. I was horrified, not only that she requested ‘cash’ but that she was going to live in a mobile home! At the time I was getting ready to go to college and thought she was ruining her life by getting married and living in a mobile home when she could have gone to college!