Only if they balance the checkbook, which a shocking number of people don’t do.
@LasMa, that would be me. I have a rough idea how much I should have, but never balance my checkbook.
How would you even know how much a “plate” costs - especially before attending the wedding? (when presumably you have already written the check)???!>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seriously, as I mentioned before having had this discussion on an old AOL message board, the folks who know this/do this actually said they take their checkbook to the wedding and reception so they can write the check for the “appropriate” amount after seeing how well they were treated!!!
@lasma They would get notification from the bank of the bounced check and associated fees so they’d have to ignore those as well as not balancing their checkbook.
“they take their checkbook to the wedding and reception so they can write the check for the “appropriate” amount after seeing how well they were treated!!!”
Might as well just sell tickets to the wedding and make it easier for everyone. 
Jersey Girl here, but I’ve never heard the term “Cover the Plate.” I think @Pizzagirl is correct about this, because my Italian husband remembers this custom.
Here are my thoughts: working class Italian-Americans have a tradition of generosity.
An Italian-American household will treat you like you are family, and spare no expense to make you feel welcome.
There’s also a bit of insecurity, about tipping and about gifting. How much do you tip/give without looking like a cheapskate? This is a point of pride, Nobody wants to be a cheapskate. Just give me a freakin’ number! ( This became a joke in “The Pope of Greenwich Village” where the main character tips at toll booths.}
So at least pay for the amount that the wedding party is paying for you to come to the wedding. (cover the plate). Just a thoughtful, kind way to participate in the wedding.
In the old days, when the wedding guests were all the same in terms of social class, we all knew how much it cost to have a wedding. So we all wanted to at least chip in for what we were eating, and make sure the couple had something extra.
We’ve entered an era where couples are having celebrity-type weddings, and expecting the rest of us to pay for it. THAT’S the tacky thing to me, not the “cover the plate” mentality of old-school Italian-Americans.
^^ thanks for specifying “Italian-American” and not just “Italian.” Sometimes people don’t realize the cultural differences that exist between Italians and Italian-Americans and attribute a cultural tradition to Italians that is really an Italian-American one 
Which would explain why it’s so foreign to those of us who came from a tradition of church hall cake and punch.
Your grandparents would have thought a cake and punch reception was cheap, mine would have thought a dinner was … Well, they would have had no frame of reference…that wasn’t how weddings went.
Thank you for your explanation.
My wedding was “fancier” , scheduled for the sweet spot (as were many of the weddings I attended in the 70s in Seattle) of wedding at 7:30 or 8:00. Guests were expected to have had dinner at home by then. Reception at a country club had very generous passed and buffet nibbles. And of course cake. Coffee and tea served by my sorority sisters. Beer keg in the back room and champagne flowing out front. But nobody I knew had a full dinner, it just wasn’t what anyone expected.
Aren’t these differences fun to explore?!
Haha! That’s pretty much my idea of how this tradition arose. Immigrant people have so many struggles to assimilate into their new country’s culture.
@dragonmom : Not me, I’m Irish-German-American! My cheapskate Pennsylvania Dutch mother made sure that the “other side” wouldn’t enjoy my wedding. And a large number of guests left for Atlantic City, to continue the party.
I hope my girls have a destination wedding on some nice island with bluest water and good tropical drinks. Parents, siblings, one or two good friends, not a crowd. Sun bathing after, massages, maybe clubbing. Later, back home, a great party. Keep it all on some budget, find ways to make it elegant without the over the top, cheesy “celebrity” aspects. I can do that.
And if anyone asks me the “per plate,” I think I’ll pretend I have no idea what they’re talking about. Or that they mean the actual china plates. “How much are you spending per plate?” “Nothing, the caterer brought them.”
And if someone gives them a crocheted coaster, I’ll say, “How lovely.”
oh Lord help me, the kids were talking today about a surprise wedding. I guess that needs a new thread. Oh please don’t do this…
“We’ve entered an era where couples are having celebrity-type weddings, and expecting the rest of us to pay for it. THAT’S the tacky thing to me, not the “cover the plate” mentality of old-school Italian-Americans”
See, this is where I disagree that big blowout weddings are a new trend. In the 1950’s, my MIL/FIL were married at a dinner for 400 at the Drake, which was at the time Chicago’s finest hotel, with all the white gloves and pomp and circumstance. They were a certain social class (well, MIL was) and that’s simply what they all did back then and what they always did. Much grander than what you see today.
Think of the historic old hotels of NYC in their heyday – things like the Plaza, the Waldorf-Astoria, the St Regis, the Peninsula, etc. They’ve always hosted big blowout events.
Even in “my day” (mid 80’s), it was very much the style to have big hotel ballroom weddings with sit-down dinners.
In my circles (such as they are), the trend has gone the other way. People are doing scaled down events – an intimate dinner for 40 at a really great restaurant instead of the hotel ballroom for 200. Or they are having them at more interesting venues – historical homes, parks, etc. – that are “rougher around the edges” but are more charming. There just don’t seem to be the rules / expectations there used to be. I think it’s a great thing, personally. I think the trends are towards smaller and more personalized reflecting the couple’s tastes and interests, versus the cookie-cutter hotel ballrooms of my day. JMO though.
Well, of course, if that was your situation. Big Blowout Weddings were for people who could afford it. And they paid for it.
Speaking of cookie-cutter hotel ballrooms, I once went to a wedding at the fanciest hotel in the city. It was a lovely space, but the entire event seemed very generic. This feeling was only enhanced when the workers shooed everyone out of the room a few minutes before the official end time of the reception. Then we had to wait 15 minutes to get our coats because the next couple was taking pictures in front of the big window that we had to pass to get to the coat check. Sorry folks, this wedding is over, next couple!
I personally like small intimate weddings where the bride and groom gets to meet and interact with all the guests. Perhaps a destination wedding with lots of interaction among everyone. I have attended some large weddings where you can’t get anywhere near the bride and groom and no one would notice if you attended or not just because of the scale of the party. The table would be so far from the central attraction that you could hardly see what was going on. Those weddings seemed more about the quantity of people attending rather than the quality of the experience for everyone. (400 to 1500 guests) At the same time I will say everyone should do what suits them.
H and I are from LI and from mostly Italian families. I first heard of “cover the plate” in zoosermom’s thread a year or so ago! Really not sure where it comes from, especially that specific phrase. We never had any angst about tipping either.
As was my mother, @greenwitch . A distinction was made above between “Italian” and “Italian American” families. Maybe you and your H and my mother came from the kind of “Italian family” that does NOT cover plates! I suspect it’s a VERY VERY small subset of Italians or any other population that thinks it’s “kind” to fork over hundreds of dollars as a show of “respect” for being lucky enough to get invited to a big do.
Shorty before my mother and grandmother passed away within months of each other, they were invited to a huge function of a relative and joked about his D getting stocks, bonds and real estate for gifts. Mom and grandma bought a tasteful, personalized item in THEIR budget. They did not cover the plate. They were welcomed all the same, and it was the last time most of the relatives saw either of them. Good thing they didn’t have to cover the plate or stay home.
Of course, I wasn’t referring to everyone in the whole wide world. But it’s a thing, And tipping has been an issue for everyone, at some point. I never heard of “covering the plate” myself, but my husband did. We’ve been married for 35 years, and we’ve been to a few different weddings, and we’ve always tried to be kind and generous.
I’m from a northern NJ Italian-American family. @HotCanary is spot on in post #545 and explained my understanding of the term “cover your plate” much better than my attempt earlier in the thread. Guests were trying to make sure they were being generous and that the hosts were not spending more on them than they gifted the couple. Unfortunately, in this age of the bridezilla and “it’s my day” way of thinking, the term has taken on a rude and greedy personality. I don’t think this was the original intent. As I said earlier, I heard reference to the term much more with my parents’ generation than mine.