It's late in the season, but many of us probably have one or two weddings left to look forward to this year.
Wedding presents are a tricky business. Some people thankfully still have wedding registries, which makes gifting easy: just pick a toaster or a kettle from the John Lewis website and you're all set.
Now though, as most couples live together before the big day, more and more are asking to be gifted cash which they can put towards a honeymoon or a house of their own.
But how much should you gift?
That, my friends, is the million dollar question. Should you give more if you're a bridesmaid? Do you give less if you've spent an arm and a leg on travel to the wedding? What if the couple getting married gave you nothing on your big day?
We asked the ever-knowledgeable members of the Money Diaries Facebook group for their input. Should couples give more than people attending alone? Do they have any tips for making a money gift look more fancy than a crumpled banknote in a card? If you're from another culture, is there a traditional amount to give?
Click through to see what they said, and hopefully solve this pesky mystery once and for all.
I try to sniff out their honeymoon location if possible and get the currency. Slightly more effort than just cash in a card...and I like looking at the notes! #geek
–Fiona
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Me and my boyfriend normally give £50 between us, and I insist on getting a money wallet so it looks a bit fancier, even though he’d be happy shoving it in the card!
–Charlotte
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I went to a Turkish wedding this year and I was a bridesmaid and my sister was the maid of honour. I gave £250 and my sister gave £750. In the Turkish culture, you can pay for the whole wedding and your first house with the cash gifts you receive.
–Nimio
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I've always tried to go by the rule that you give around the cost of a fancy meal. So maybe £50 for a couple going to a buffet, more if it's a really fancy all day wedding. And my cousin gave us money that she'd folded origami style and taped in with washi tape... It was beautiful!
–Samina
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I usually give about £40-£50 between me and my partner if we are both going to the wedding for the full day and the couple asks for cash. £20-£30 if I am going alone or we are evening guests. For closer friends and family we will spend more and I will try and make something, or purchase a gift too (something personalised, or something cool from a museum gift shop). Hindu weddings usually have a 'no boxed gifts' rule but you can purchase a variety of jazzy envelopes to pop your cash in.
–Krishna
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I’m from Malaysia so for Malay weddings we either bring a present or give some money. It’s between RM50 to RM100 which is £10 to £20. It’s quite a lot of money in Malaysia though. For Chinese weddings, you always have to give money. The amount is based on how much the meal costs. So you would google the restaurant and hotel the wedding would be at, and it would show how much you have to give to the couple.
–Aina
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
It depends on the cultural background for the wedding and the style of wedding. English traditional weddings I think £30 per couple is enough. For Irish weddings the standard is €100–€150 per couple. Irish weddings traditionally have an open bar for a set period or very generous drinks allowance for the toast and meal. They usually last for hours more as well. I have been to five weddings this year, luckily only two of them were Irish.
–Nemi
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Evening only £30 (or equivalent amount as a gift), for whole day £50 (or equivalent amount as a gift). We couldn't believe how generous people were when we received gifts for our wedding. I was happy for them just to turn up!
–Kara
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
You guys are lucky you’re not Italian, as an acceptable gift is anything from €80-100 up per person!
–Alessandra
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I went to a wedding recently and they had a website called buy a brick [for the couple's first house]. Guests could buy a theoretical "brick" for £1, or pack of bricks for £10, or a door for £30, etc. You could make it anonymous or leave a message. Thought it was a cute way of doing it and no pressure on splurging.
–Charlotte
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
In Australia, the rule of thumb is to 'cover the cost' of your meal, so you'd give around £75pp (i.e. £150 for a couple). We are a bit the opposite, in that you might invite more people to the ceremony than to the reception.
–Ainsley
£15 if I go alone, £20 if we go as a couple. (Not sorry – attending is expensive and we’ve not married/bought a house/had babies yet, we’re watching our money.)
–Rachael
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I recently got engaged and had this convo with my partner. I would be so grateful for anything £10-200 doesn’t matter to me! Also at a wedding I went to when me and a group of friends were students and couldn’t give much, we grouped together and worked out how many minutes I think it was that they had been together and gave them 10p or something like that for every minute, the couple loved it!
–Ali
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
We give cash gifts in Chinese culture in red packets. I think £50-100 depending on how close you are and whether you're having the wedding breakfast or not (we were once evening guests at friends wedding we didn't know that well so only paid £30 each), but also on your financial status. If I invited a friend who wasn't doing financially that well, then I wouldn't be surprised or annoyed if it's less. In Chinese culture, a lot of money changes hands when you go to each other's weddings, so ideally you should give something equivalent to what you received. Some people even keep spreadsheets on these numbers, which is a bit OTT for me.
–Leet
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I wouldn’t typically go much over £30, although I will always splash out on (or make) a nice card and often knit a little personalised heart with their initials or something but then I thought about my friends and remembered they would never think badly of someone or mind if they didn’t give as much as another person, and then I felt better about it.
–Becca
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
I'm a German Vietnamese living in the UK, so it depends which culture the couple is from.
Giving money as a wedding gift is a big thing in Vietnam, and the idea behind it is to set them up for their new life together (in the same way that you used to gift household items over here), so people tend to give substantial sums. My husband and I would give between £200-500 in a card, depending on how far we have to travel for the wedding. (But this only applies to family. I haven't got any Vietnamese friends.)
In Germany, giving money is also the norm, but the amounts are smaller, so we give around £100. I wouldn't bother travelling far to attend a friend's wedding (definitely not outside of Europe), so travel costs aren't a consideration here. Germans also often fold the money to look pretty – folding it into flowers and sticking them into a bouquet of real flowers is a popular option, or into the shape of clothes on a washing line, as in the picture.
We haven't had any British friends get married yet, so I'm not sure what we'd do here, but one of my husband's cousins got married recently. Since money isn't as big a deal here, my husband's family doesn't usually give money as a present, and the couple didn't give us anything for our wedding, we only gave them £50. (They asked for money towards their honeymoon – otherwise we probably would have bought them a household item.) I think with UK friends, by default, we'd probably gift similar amounts as we would for Germans – but it depends on the couple.
When we got married, we were really worried about being given items that we would have no space for in our tiny London flat, so we explicitly asked people not, under any circumstances, to give us any objects, because we wouldn't have anywhere to store them. We also said that we didn't expect any presents, but if people really wanted to, they could contribute money towards our honeymoon, which is what most of the Germans and some of the Brits did (£25-100). Some people gave us nothing, and we didn't mind that at all. All my Vietnamese family gave us cash during our traditional Vietnamese tea ceremony (€200-1,500). We were also given 20k from our parents, so all the monetary gifts more than covered the cost of our wedding and honeymoon.
–Cara
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
My boyfriend is Spanish, he gives between 300-500 euros to friends, his parents gave his cousin 2,000 euros! This apparently is totally normal in Spain.
–Bobbie
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
£15-£20 tops – I can't afford more, factoring in things like travel, overnight stays, frock etc.
–Alexandra
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Personally I think however much anyone chooses to give is okay, weddings are expensive to attend as well as throw and I don’t think there is any 'acceptable' amount because any amount could be a lot to someone depending on their circumstances. When I got married I had friends who gave £5 and friends who gave £50. I was just as grateful for both because it’s the thought it’s given with that matters, not the amount.
–Abigail
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