We are off to a wedding on 1st March.
How much is appropriate to give as a gift for a wishing well and do you put it in a card with best wishes or do you give just in a blank envelope?
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We are off to a wedding on 1st March.
How much is appropriate to give as a gift for a wishing well and do you put it in a card with best wishes or do you give just in a blank envelope?
General rule of thumb seems to be that you give an amount commensurate with what the couple is paying to have you as a guest. For example if it costs $120 per head (guesstimate) and you and a partner are attending then you would give $240.
Having said that, rules are made to be broken and I use this as a guide only. Usually DH and I cap out at about $150 for the both of us and if it is a couple we are very close to then we also give a small gift in addition to the wishing well. I always get a lovely card and write a message from both of us. I think it is nice for people to keep the cards and look back at them long after the money is gone.
HTH
You can do whatever, most people put the money in a card while others put it in a blank envelope. I usually give what I'd spend on a present. $50-$100 is a good amount to give.
I usually give money in a card. I love getting cards so pass my passion on. Depending how close I am to the wedding party, I give $50-$100.
If we gave the CPH x2 as another poster said, I'd be broke!
Yes this. But i would cap at around $150. You generally get plenty of notice before a wedding so gives you time to put a little money aside for the occasion. DH and I were so broke after paying for our reception that we basically had nothing left for our honeymoon. So the $$ from guests saved us! :):
Culturally we generally give money. We rarely go to a wedding were there are gifts.
You always give a card, money inside, because that is the gift from you. The main idea is you are helping the couple with a good start to married life.
As far as amount, that depend on what you can afford and want to give. We follow the rule of thumb of cph+some. Of course that is just works for us.
And like Tasha said, normally the notice you get for the wedding helps to put money aside.
If the couple want the amount they spend on the guests, maybe they should ask people to pay their own way. It annoys me when couples expect a certain amount of money from people. I thought weddings were about celebrating a life event with friends and family, not a money making scheme. ....sorry, just a little vent.
I wouldn't even think about trying to figure out what they've spent on you and gifting it in return, it's not a business transaction! They aren't a restaurant you've gone to for dinner... just seems really odd to me to be honest.
I'd gift what you would have spent on them as a gift. For us we usually do $50 for friends, $100 for close friends and family, $150 for close family like a sibling.
Don't over think it, I know for most people I know it's all about having you there to celebrate and enjoy, not what you 'pay for the privilege' :P
Oh and we usually include a card so we can write some well wishes and such but you can always give a card seperately too which some do.
I don't know of any couples that expect a certain amount? I certainly didn't. As guest though that's the guide we use.:
We had no expectations as to cash values when we had a wishing well for our wedding. We used to spend about $50 as a couple but after the amounts we received we increased it and now we generally give $100 as a couple. Some people gave us about $20 and that was fine too. Whatever. I certainly wasn't actually intending to recoup the cost of the wedding.
We usually give $100-$150 for friends and $150-$200 for close friends or family. We had a large wedding a did not expect guests to contribute anywhere near what we paid per head. We had some cards thats were empty because people simply couldnt afford to contribute which was totally fine. We had others that didnt even bother to put a card in which ill admit annoyed me. I wanted cards as a keepsake of our friends and family spending our special day with us x
WOW!!! I would never have thought of giving what the CPH was!
I would normally spend around $80-100 so from reading this that seems OK.
I will now look for a really lovely card or have a friend make a really special one for them.
When I read the first post I honestly thought I'd not go to the wedding 'cause even with time to save we just couldn't afford that plus babysitting for half a day.
I give what I can afford. Sometimes it's $50 other times is $100
I won't make myself broke for a wedding nor would I expect anyone else to stress over the amount they give.
If I knew somebody was having to scrimp and save in order to give me a gift I'd feel kind of horrible about it. Happy just to have their pressence and a card to help remember it by. I'm the one choosing to have a wedding after all and if I invite someone it's because I want them there to spend the occasion, not so they can help me fund it.:
For those who give cost per person as a gift, what if you have to travel a considerable distance to the event? Or if you have to book accommodation or a babysitter? Do you take those costs into consideration?
Good question. For us, we try to give the best we can afford to the married couple. If they feel we are important enough to them to include us in their special day, we try and return the feeling.:
So in line with that, if we have to travel a long distance for the wedding, obviously our budget would be a bit different. We travelled to a wedding in Italy for one of dh's best friends. We couldn't afford to give them the same as if the wedding was local. We gave what we could.
As far as the cph thing, I certainly don't know how much each venue costs etc, so it's a guess on what we'd be costing them and then easing it.
This is a tough one. I haven't been to a wedding in a long time that DIDN'T have a wishing well - maybe it's our generation?
I generally give approx $100 per head, so if it's DH and I - $200-250 (depending on how close we are to the couple).
Very close friends (DS's godparents) of ours are getting married next week. The venue they are going to is approx $200/head... It's their prerogative to go to such an expensive venue, so I don't think they expect people to 'repay' them. Having said that, DS is the page boy and they have bought him an outfit, including shoes etc, and we are very close, so we will be giving them $500.
I do think it all gets a bit much, particularly when you've been invited to everything leading up to the wedding:
- Engagement $250
- Hens Night $100
- Buck's weekend $800 (thankfully DH didn't go)
- Kitchen tea $120
- New dress, shoes etc $350
At the end of the day, you give what you can and what you want to.
We had a flight centre registry for our wedding (rather than a wishing well), so people either put money on that or gave us cash and we didn't judge amounts we were given. We were pretty thrilled to get anything!
I could never afford to do CPH. If we had done that none of our friends could have come to our wedding. We got married a long time ago- back when all our friends were young and poor!
We had a flight centre registry. Guests donated to that, and we were given a list from flight centre of people who contributed, but did not know the amounts. We just had an overall total.
As a guest, I would never think to gift the amount it has cost to have me at the wedding. I've been to a wedding that was $300+ per head! So DH should have given $600? I don't think so.
As someone who had a money based registry (we had a honeymoon registry), we didn't care if someone gave $10! There was certainly no expectation on how much people "should" give. We wanted the wedding, that was our cost and we didn't want to be reimbursed for it, just wanted to celebrate. We chose a honeymoon registry because we 'd lived together for numerous years and didn't have the room for additional things.
I'd be inclined to give between $50 - $100 into a wishing well for friends and $100 - $200 for close friends /family. Depending on our financial circumstances.
I'm like the others, I give what I feel is right for the occasion. Not the cost of the wedding. Sorry but that's the decision they've made not me.
We were the same with having a wishing well due to already living together. But our wedding was pretty low key, so it didn't cost us an arm and a leg. We had a wedding we could afford rather than expecting our guests to pay. And in the end, we preferred having our family and friends there. And any money was a bonus and helped is save for our first house.
We didn't have a wishing well, but asked for no gifts, just a card for memories sake. Most gave us $50 cash or $50 gift cards.
We had a flight centre registry - guests out in anything from $30-200 depending on their relationship to us. On average $50 -100 was the go. Hope that's helpful!
We generally go with $50-100, for my BFF we put in $200 but generally $100 is our limit
This is us for an up coming wedding, it's on a Friday so requires DH to have two days off work , we need to travel interstate, we need a baby sitter, a hotel, traveling to from hotel/wedding, we've been asked to pay for our own drinks AND we've been asked to contribute to the wishing well, I'm really unsure about what to put in the wishing well!:
20 should suffice :p:
jokes aside, the cph is an old tradition whereby, even if you were buying an actual gift, the cost of that physical gift would have *traditionally* been around the price of the cph. having a well is no different :dunno: we had a Well at our wedding back in 2007 and we had blank envelopes set up with the well that ppl could use. everyone, bar 2
ppl (who just popped their money straight into the well) put money in a wedding card with beautiful messages beforehand so the blank envelopes weren't needed!
When I got married the average amount was $50. 2 or 3 people put in $100 & ex's work mates chucked in $20 each.
In my situation I'd struggle to put in $50, but I wouldn't feel right giving any less than that. Any more than that for me would usually be impossible. Especially when there are travel costs etc involved.
Well it's interesting that people have such differing views.
We were married 23 years ago in April and we had nothing as we'd not been living together. Anything we got was useful but I still question the very ugly turkey platter from a much loved older friend. It does however get trotted out most Christmas Dinners and is either admired or laughed at. We'd have been considered fairly rude asking for money from everyone from my cultural background but a couple of older relatives gave us LARGE cheques.
My aunt gave us a saucepan......still used most days of the 23 years!
We've sort of "grown out" of our wedding going days for friends. This couple have been living together for ages so we are rather looking forward to celebrating with them.
I guess it will be nieces and nephews next!
I did not want to give anonymously if it was not the done thing and I didn't want to display how much we were giving if this was not the done thing. I am glad I asked the question.
Card and affordable amount of $$$ it is!
This really annoys me. My friend had to do this for one of her friends (who didn't live interstate, just wanted to get married there!):
see I think this is where it's completely different now. *Most* couples live together now before getting married so they have all the *stuff* they kind of need for married life together, hence why Wishing Wells are quite the norm now.:
I find the "CPH" concept fascinating - I can understand how it started - probably a while ago - but that was when the hype/expense/expectations surrounding weddings were much, much less. I know a whole cohort of married couples who managed to have lovely receptions with plenty of fluff on amounts like $30 - $70 per head (I kid you not). The idea that I "should" be shelling out upwards of $250, $400, or even $500 because someone decided they couldn't possibly get married without having hand-braided love knots on every chair is RIDICULOUS.
Sure, if you can afford to be generous, be generous. I would. Just don't assume that there is a social requirement to fund someone else's obscene spending decisions.
my wedding reception was $68 per head back in 2007. I wasn't *expecting* ppl to fund my "obscene spending" but I also didn't want a lot of stuff I already had. so yeah, money worked for us. I couldn't have cared less if ppl put money in or not, we didn't stand at the well watching everyone, we were too busy enjoying the reception!
in *my* opinion ppl tend to get their back up with wishing Wells because they're worried about being "judged" about the amount they can put in.
I give whatever I'd spend on a gift. So maybe $50 on a friend, more on a close friend, more again on family.
The cost per head IMHO has nothing to do with it. I mean at the end of the day, is the guest supposed to do a rough calculation of the outlay? Google or email places for the meal deal, the price of the bonbonierre, and then check with the bridesmaid whether the orders of service were printed at home or professionally done?
Whatever you'd spend on a gift is fine.
Have fun :)
PS: I tend to write a nice card, which is signed, and which would mean they know how much DH and I gave. How that measures up I don't know! I hope my presence rather than my cheque was important ;)
For my wedding, we got everything from a mix tape to a cheque for $100. The value and the love, not the quantum, was what I remember :)
If im honest DH and I hated the idea of a wishing well. We decided we just wanted our guests there to celebrate the day with us. So we put a little not in with the invites saying that their attendance would be a lovely gift, but if they must get a gift something small is perfect too.
We didnt want people to feel they had to get something
We did the same re: no gifts but I know a lot of people (like us) don't listen to those notes anyway and we didn't want a bunch of 'stuff' so we set up a flight centre registry. Some people didn't give us anything and that was totally fine too. Most cash gifts were probably on the 'small' side which was prefect given that we asked for their presence only and pretty much everyone had to travel so that was enough!
We said no gifts as we asked them to pay for their meals if they were attending. We just had a casual lunch reception at a restaurant and only one or 2 didn't show and we still got gifts.
Honestly, I get my back up because I find it to be in exceptionally poor taste to tell your guests 'yeah, don't worry about a gift… we'll take your cash instead, thanks'. Just because something has become common place, and is accompanied by a sweet little poem, doesn't mean that it is not bad manners.:
cash or gift, same, same to me. It's still money spent.:
Gift giving, to me, is not about the money spent - it's the thought that goes into the gift that you think the recipient will enjoy the most and the time spent searching for just the right gift. Cash without time and thought is not a gift, it's a payment.
We can agree to disagree
I included 'no gifts' on the wedding invitation and for the most part got no gifts (the grandmothers couldn't come without a gift lol). We were in Australia at the time and returned to NZ for the wedding, everyone had to travel to the location (in between our hometowns) and we didn't need anything. It meant a lot to me that people would travel to share our day. We subsidised the accommodation and helped out with petrol for some as I know that it was expensive for people to come. I certainly didn't expect or want any cash from any of them.
As far as wishing wells, I do see the benefit to them over gifts but I would never guestimate the cph - I would give a standard $50 to any wedding I attended, perhaps more for a sibling or very close friend.