@oldfort My financial planner says that most young (and not so young) adults are still on their parents cell phone plan. Maybe it’s those nasty school loans that plague the younger generation.
@MaterS ,My younger son is still on our cell phone plan but he pays us for it.
For the last wedding we went to last year, I only spent about $125 for a gift. An engraved roasting pan from Williams -Sonoma that was on their registry. Some of you sound very generous!
Having anyone extra on my cell plan is $10. My DH is on my plan LOL. My kids can stay on that forever. Most cell plans will be like mine. If that is what a financial planner thinks is egregious, I owuld be looking at his $$ take.
Yeah. My older son just went off our plan a couple of months ago. And only because his employer pays for his plan. Otherwise, I’m sure he’d still be on our plan!
I think wedding gifts vary by region and religion. My Greek coworker had 500 guests at her wedding. She said she received two gifts and everyone else gave cash. If it is the wedding of a niece or nephew I would just ask the parent rather than an internet forum. I always give the same $$ based on the relationship whether the wedding is cake and punch or a blow out at the Ritz.
Our plan is just $30/person including taxes. It has no limits on data, talk or text. It seems quite reasonable to us. S pays for him and H, I pay for me and D.
Whenever I attend a wedding with our “kids,” I ask them if they’ll be giving their own gift or we should include them in ours. So far, they’ve always wanted us to include them with our gift and I just increase the amount. We usually give between $100 to $500, depending on how close we are to the couple. We often also give a little something with the gift—HI potholders, flatware from the registry, pots from registry, etc.
^Same here. I am grandfathered in to an old T-Mobile plan that costs $10 for every line I add after the first two ($40 each). So the cost for S and D are $10 each plus a few dollars in fees for their lines with unlimited data. It would be stupid to give that up just so they could have accounts in their own names. They do their own gifting, to get back to the original point of the thread. I also think college graduation/early 20s is a good time to begin that practice.
$10 per person and another $17 in taxes, Any time I am in the cell phone store and they pull up the discount my husband receives the workers are really sad that they get a smaller discount than my husband. lol And we get it on every single item in the store.
Back to the original theme. I’m happy that our family doesn’t do the big blowouts for weddings or funerals My FIL spent close to $20k for the dinner after the funeral for his wife. The funeral was another $10 or 15k.
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I would echo what others have said…decide what you can afford and then do exactly the same amount for each couple.
Do you send your nieces and nephews their own invitations? If you put them on their parents’ invitation, then the gift can be included with the parents’ gift.
^^Anyone can correct me if I’m wrong but I think that largely the point is if I’m the parent and my gift is going to be $100 to a couple getting married, but my 25 year old child for some reason wanted to latch onto our gift then that check would grow to $150 or something - with the 25 year old kicking in their portion.
So, the gift value should increase if an adult child is part of the gift given.
But why wouldn’t the young adult just give the $50 directly to bride and groom so that the B&G know that the gift is from the young adult who received her own invitation? How would the b&G know that the gift size had grown by $50?
If they have a registry, buy something on the list. People love to give the fancy stuff, but if sheets and towels are on the list, buy those.
Otherwise, cash. Everyone needs it. You choose the amount based on your budget and relationship, not the cost of the plate at the wedding.
Buy something from the registry, write a check, pick out something you think the couple would like, whatever.
But no matter what gift you choose, don’t bring it to the wedding. Ship it to the couple’s home (or the bride’s or groom’s home if they don’t already live together).
My daughter got married last year. In the Washington, DC area. On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. She and her new husband flew back to their home in Colorado the next day.
Several people brought gifts to the reception. What, exactly, were the bride and groom supposed to do with those gifts? They couldn’t ship them home before they left the DC area because it was a holiday weekend. They didn’t have room for them in their suitcases. They didn’t have time to buy an extra suitcase to transport them in, and they didn’t need an extra suitcase anyway.
What they ended up doing was giving her bridal gown to me (I live within driving distance of the wedding venue) and using the suitcase that had been reserved for the gown to carry the presents back to Colorado. But this was certainly not convenient. And I still have that big, bulky dress in my closet, more than a year later.
Ship the present. Please.
@Marian That is also regional. I went to a wedding reception where the bride and groom opened the gifts.
I never heard of that, @MaterS. I wonder how it works for people who don’t live near their venue.
@Marian - I agree! I was surprised at the number of people who brought wedding gifts to my daughters’ weddings. The first time, I was unprepared for it and spent an hour after the reception struggling to load the gifts into our car along with the leftover favors, programs, centerpieces, the wedding gown, etc. When my youngest d was married, the day-of coordinator packed all the gifts and other wedding stuff into my daughter’s car. One of the many reasons she was worth every cent she charged.
D1 had her wedding 200 miles away from her home. No one brought a gift to the wedding. We didn’t set up a table for it. I think there was a box (or something) for cards.
Like Marian, I have not been to a wedding where presents were opened - showers, yes.
Our DD and SIL had only one gift that was brought to the wedding. We did have a little thing for cards. The folks who sent gifts had them shipped. Some folks mailed cards before the wedding date as well.
Like others, the wedding was held far from where DD lives. Luckily it was close to us.
So whatever you decide…don’t bring it to the wedding.
Where I lived in the midwest, gifts were often opened at the brunch the day after the wedding.