Wishing well at a wedding etiquette?

[Miss.September]

WOW! Holy cow Our wedding was considered 'extravagant' by some and we spent around $15-20K, with the reception totalling $10K at $105 per head (paid more to have it in March)

And I like the idea of wishing wells. No point getting a gift that the bride/groom may not like so much or already have something similar.

You paid extra for a March wedding? What was the reason they gave you? Ours was a March wedding at $59 per head! That was for a three course meal, the hire of the chapel, drinks and nibbles between the ceremony and reception, all drinks, plus chair covers too. This was for a lunch reception on a Sunday which meant we lost half an hour on what we would have had on a dinner reception. Dinner was $89 per head. Wasn't a hall or anything, it was at one of the nicest wedding venues here. We had 69 people all up and we fought hard to keep the list down (Italian background). We refused to have anyone there we didn't know and had no kids (from the age of three they were charged out as an adult).

I kinda like how this thread is now completely off topic because it's still really interesting!

Even though we had the honeymoon registry, we still received other gifts. And yes, we did cop nasty slack about asking people to give money essentially. Which is crazy because other weddings I'd been to , the same people who have us a hard time were happy to pin hundreds of dollars to the bride's dress because it was "custom".

[*Ang*]

I think it is the implication of being "told" what to give which is where the wishing well comes unstuck. At least with a gift registry you have a choice in gifts and can make it as personal or impersonal as you like.

Regardless of whether you were planning on giving cash or not when there is a wishing well it is almost like the choice has been taken away from you. I like to be given choices and resent being told what to do.

In my European culture a lot of the older people will give cash and that's ok...that is their choice to do so.

If I am going to a wedding and giving cash I would give $150 for DH and I. If it was a sibling then $300-500 and a close friend $200.

Incidentally when we got married back in 2001 we had 220 guests. Total wedding cost was around 27k - this was split between the inlaws, my folks and us. We received around 6k in cash at the wedding which we then used to purchase a larger wedding photo album and some photos for the wall which we would not have been able to otherwise afford.

[Livinthedream]

I like wishing wells, because I am slack and hate shopping.

[Marley&Me]

You paid extra for a March wedding? What was the reason they gave you?

I kinda like how this thread is now completely off topic because it's still really interesting!

.

They didn't say actually.....but it was more for March, November and I think February or April too. I assume it's because it's generally nice weather during these months and they are popular. That included everything except alcohol which we paid about $1500 for. We booked 12 months before the wedding and got the last Saturday in March left. Oh and because it was a Saturday it was more too! If we had it on say a Wednesday in July it would have been around $60 per head. But i loathe cold weather and it was out of the question
But I have to say it was worth it. I had a totally stress free wedding because they took care of everything. Plus it was a beautiful place

And yes, it's slightly off topic, but nevertheless instresting

[Teeki]

WhenI got engaged and married, I had no idea you gave engagement gifts. We got loads. They were almost all useless. I now have a ridiculous amount of serving platters, two cupboards full of "fancy" jugs and glasses, a set if sheets that don't look good in any of our bedrooms and who knows what else. It showed me that people had no clue what to buy us - they wanted to get us couple things for our house, but we already had everything.

I didn't want the same for the wedding - not just for us, I love that people put thought into their gifts and many tried to personalise them and most had a reason behind what they'd bought - but also for the guests. Almost everyone said to us "sorry, we didn't know what to get you!". I didn't want to put any stress on anyone, and didn't want anyone to apologise for what they'd given. So we went with a honeymoon registry, and said something along the lines of "if you would like to give a gift but need a bit of help, we're honeymooning *here* and you can help us make it extra special" or something. Everyone gave far more than we ever thought, we were shocked! Only two people didn't use the registry - my cousin did the invitations for us through her work as her gift (and traveled interstate to be my maid of honour) and DH's aunt made the cake as her gift.

I've never actually seen any invitation with a "no gift policy" *but* we'll take cash if you want to give it. It's always if you'd like to give a gift, cash towards xx would be helpful.

I don't really like cost per head either. I have a friend getting married, and my brother. If my friend decided on a huge extravagant wedding costing $200ph I would not be giving her more than my brother who may decide on a smaller $50ph wedding because they're buying a house. For me it all comes down to our relationship with the couple, the type of wedding they've chosen to pay for doesn't come into it.

[wysiwyg]

Well 1st of March is a good day to get married on - that is the date I got married :-)

I have got to this ripe old age without ever hearing about this CPH concept, I had never heard of wishing wells till came to Australia either. I must say I like them, or holiday registries etc, as most people have enough stuff anyway - and I don't enjoy shopping. We have just given whatever thought at the time, but probably 50-100 max I think. Where people have had interstate weddings where we have flown to them, stayed in hotel etc, they have always said no gifts just attendance is all they want - so we have respected that and just given a card. If get invites to any more weddings now I have heard of CPH it won't make a difference to what we give.

We asked for no gifts, we did get some money given though and actually everyone who gave gave more than the CPH :-) - because we just had a BBQ and no venue.