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As I’m getting older, getting invited to friends/family weddings are becoming more frequent. It’s nice to see everyone settling in with their significant others - happy and excited about their future together.
For about 99% of the weddings I’ve been to, they’ve requested or at least preferred cash gifts. Monetary gifts are especially common now with brides and grooms who are financing their own wedding. For Mr. Apple and I, we definitely are expecting cash gifts from the family at least. They all know we need all the help we can get! 
We also registered at Traveler’s Joy so guests can pick and choose our activities, dinner, hotel, taxi, expenses for our honeymoon in case they didn’t want to give us $$ gifts.
Just curious, for those of you who have given cash wedding gifts, how much on average do you give the bride and groom?
I guess it is dependent on how close you are to the bride/groom, your own financial situation, and your social circle. We attended a nice wedding last weekend and we gifted $50/person. The groom was a very good college friend but within the past 5-7 years we would speak maybe once a year.
Do people give more money if the wedding is more fancy/elaborate?
Yes, I’ve heard that you should at least cover your plate.
Whenever I go to an asian wedding, I give cash gifts. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I choose the amount on how close I am to the person and to the location of the wedding. If it’s an expensive place, I give more to at least try to cover my plate. Because as Miss Apple mentioned, many more couples are financing their own wedding. If it’s a family wedding, then it’s a heck of a lot more. For instance, I went to a very close cousin’s wedding recently and I gave $500. That was from both my fiance and me. I could go down the list of how many cash gifts I have given at weddings but that’s boring. What I would like to mention is a scene from the Sopranos. It seems that whenever the Sopranos go to a wedding, they keep tabs on how much they give. That way when their children get married, they want to make sure they recoup that cash gift or more. They even have a little notebook for it. I thought it was pretty funny. But then I realized that people do keep track of these things. A newlywed couple recently told me how the woman’s parents were a bit upset that some of their old friends gave so little to their daughter when they had given so much to their friends’ kids.
In the end, I think it’s best not to keep such tabs. Give what you think is appropriate. With an amount that you are comfortable. And enjoy the festivities!
I think it does depend on the circumstances and the relationship with the couple.
A few examples - Apparently the correct etiquette is no gift is required when you go to a destination wedding, but I still always feel obligated to give something. (Do the couples expect this?) I’ve given varying amounts for the 2 recent ones I’ve been to.
Also, living in the NYC area, I feel obligated to give more. Most of the weddings I’ve been to are outside the city but I typically give $200 total (for fiance and I). Although I’m hoping most people will at least remember that generosity when they come to our wedding, I’m not expecting it in return. Ours will be in the city and the cost will likely be far more than most others we’ve been to so it would be nice to get SOME of it back though.
The whole wedding stage of our lives is really draining our finances though. In 2 years we’ll have attended, 8 weddings (including 5 that are destination weddings), not to mention all the ones that we were unable to attend….
My fi and I got invited to 10 weddings last year and, boy, did our ATM cards get a beat down.
Typically, we gage the event to the $ that they spent on us. So adding the dinner plus some logistics then we add $20 on top as the “gift”. So the average wedding that we have gone to have been around $100 a head, so we give maybe $125 a person, $150 if we are good friends.
We gave our cousin $1000 for the both of us. ‘Cause it’s family and we know we are going to get it back anyway. Sad to say but it’s the truth.
I’ve also heard of Chinese people giving $999.99 or $99.99. I’m not chinese (but marrying chinese) so I don’t really know what it literally means but I was told that it is like longevity or a long marriage.
I generally give $200-250 to friends. I’d give more if it were a family member. I live in NYC where the “cover your plate” idea is pretty common, but since most weddings are $150-300 a plate, it is kinda hard to cover both of our plates.
i think it all depends on how close they are, and also how expensive your plate is. so for example, if a friend (not a close friend) was getting married and the cost of a plate was $120 bucks, then we’d probably give about $200 to $250. but when its our best friends, then i try to give about $300 to $500. oh, and it also depends on how we’re doing financially at the time. if you catch me around xmas, i’m going to have less money than say…..march or april.
I’m going to chime in on the low-end of the scale. I generally give a gift from the registry in the $40-$50 range. For destination weddings, it’s a $25-$30 registry gift. I wish I could afford to spend more, but it’s just not possible for me at this point in my life. Also, I confess I had no idea that my peers were giving $200+ gifts! I’m in the Midwest–is that kind of big gift a “big city” thing?
Wow! Either we are grossly under gifting or things are much different where I live. We usually give $100 as a couple unless it is a very close friend or family member and then we give $150. Weddings around here are quite different though and I have not been to a wedding where the per plate cost would be more than $50/person so I guess we are covering our plates. Ours is going to be quite expensive relative to our area but it is still only $150/person and I would never expect anyone to give us more than $150 per couple. Am I crazy here? When we registered the lady said that $100 was the average amount that a couple would spend on a gift so I thought that we were doing okay… You all have rocked my world here with those amounts!
i usually estimate how much my dinner would cost at the wedding, and give somewhat close to that amount.
my guideline - you should give what you can comfortably afford.
although it’s generous and pretty much expected these days, you aren’t obliged to bring a gift and brides/grooms shouldn’t be asking for them, either. we are inviting others to celebrate our day with us. period. gifts of any kind are nice but should be considered and appreciated as extras.
whether i give cash or a gift depends on the couple and what i know they’d prefer. honestly, cash is usually cop out for me when i run out of time or haven’t had a chance to put as much thought into a gift as i’d like. even if it’s off the registry, i like to put some thought into what i’m giving, make it appropriate to the couple, and make it appropriate to me (something i’d give).
I could never bring myself to give cash as a gift. For one thing, they know exactly what you spent, with all the problems outlined in other comments that that entails. It just makes the whole thing less of a social transaction and more of a commercial one. I’m also very uncomfortable with receiving cash gifts, for the same reasons.
I was a bridesmaid at a wedding and it was a simple buffet reception - my boyfriend and I gave the bride $200. That seems reasonable. I consider the type of wedding and how close I am to that person. Family will definitely be $500+!
Really? Is it true that people don’t give gifts if it’s a destination wedding?
They *request* cash gifts? That seems a little ballsy! 
This is possibly going to sound kind of cold and calculated, but we have so many weddings to attend in the next couple of years that we have to have a scientific method for this! We consider four factors when deciding how much to spend:
1- the state of our finances and how much we can afford to spend
2 - the closeness of the friendship with the bride & groom
3 - the cost being spent on us at the wedding i.e. how much our reception meal costs the couple
4 - how much it costs us to attend the wedding i.e. travel & hotel costs for an out of town wedding
If it was a really close friend who was throwing an expensive wedding and it cost us nothing to attend, we’d spend the maximum amount that we could afford.
If it was not a close friend, it was costing us significantly to attend (i.e. my fiance’s best friend is getting married in Niagara Falls in June and it’s costing us $2000 to get there and stay at a hotel), or they were cheaping out on us (i.e. we’re attending a wedding in Vegas in April and discovered to our horror that we are expected to pay for our own dinner at the reception), we’d start cutting from the amount we’re willing to spend on the gift accordingly. The Vegas couple are getting a $50 gift card for example, and I think we’re being generous.
We usually give 250 dollars for a wedding. You figure that the wedding costs about 125 to 150 per person.
How do you “request” cash gift? I’ve always thought of it as rude, but now a friend of mine is thinking of requesting cash only. . .
hehe I already commented on your xanga, but yes - many people calculate how much to give a couple depending on how nice/elaborate the wedding is - one time I went to a wedding, a couple months ago actually, and one guy said - man! I feel ripped off (a guest) - I’m going to go back and write a check for a smaller amount!!
I am marrying an Italian and the scene from the Sopranos that Miss Almond described is so true. I don’t think my in-laws-to-be keep track of it in a book (I hope not!) but the “getting it back” mentality is definitely there.
My fiance and I usually give $200-$300 per wedding depending on how close we are to the couple, and more of it’s family.
These things get expensive and it will be nice to be on the receiving end of it–for once!!!
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Mrs. Apple, Dallas Age and Occupation in '07: 28, Entrepreneur Fiance's Age and Occupation: 32, Police Officer Engagement Date: Easter Day 2006 Wedding Date: May 27, 2007 Blogging Since: September 28, 2006 Venue: Marie Gabrielle Restaurant & Gardens About Me: I'm in the midst of trying to plan a "perfectly beautiful" wedding and decorating my new home. It's been exhausting but totally worth every minute of it. Ironically, I was never the type of person to want to get married but now that I'm engaged, I get giddy over anything that is wedding related! I'll try my best to give you all unique and practical ideas.
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