First let me start by saying that by 'Canadians' I don't just mean people who live in Canada. In contrast to the places I've been to in the US, Southern Ontario isn't really a melting pot. There are more nationalities and ethnicities living here than anywhere else I can think of and most keep strong roots to their cultures and customs.

So this past weekend I attended the wedding of a couple of our friends. These are people my fiancée met through work over two years ago and we've become somewhat close. The wedding ceremony and reception were at a private golf club and the setup was quite decent, with a candle-lit sunset ceremony and all.

Since we're planning a reception of our own for next June I'm always curious about costs and "income." Long story short, these friends made back less than half of what it cost them to host the function. WTF!

I know their per-plate cost and we put in about 3x that for the both of us. Obviously many didn't cover their plate cost. That's bloody rude. But to make matters more embarrassing, a couple of people didn't bring a gift of any kind!

The expected gift in many cultures is cash. That's certainly the case for most European and asian cultures. The bride is Vietnamese/Chinese and the groom Polish. As is custom in Chinese tradition they sent out a small red envelope with the invitations. Many people at their work were "offended" that they would expect cash as a gift. WTF! Have these people never been to a wedding in this country that wasn't some anglo-trash cold-cut and beer setup?

personally, I wouldn't think of attending someone's wedding and giving anything but cash unless they specifically asked for something else instead, like via a registry for instance, and mentioned something about not wanting currency.

I don't know from my Middle-America upbringing point-of-view it seems downright petty to calculate your costs and income of a wedding. I know we didn't recoup the cost of our wedding, in fact I can't think of many people I know that did.

So when can we expect to see tickets for your wedding up on ticketmaster.com (this is a joke, I'm just pulling your leg )

As a general rule you don't outright ask for cash at an English wedding, if I thought I was invited because I gave a good gift at another wedding I wouldn't go! (as the people who know me will tell you this has never happened )

Weddings shouldn't be about money anyway, for my "gift" to my girlfriend brother's wedding recently I did evening photographic cover and a reception video diary, this didn't cost me much to do, but the value to the couple was very great indeed. (BTW you can see the video diary here)

I think gifts shouldn't be about the money, and a wedding certainly shouldn't be about making money or aiming to break even. Just my opinion.

Cris.

We certainly budgeted to be 15 - 20 thousand out of pocket and would have been surprised if anyone had brought cash. That said, we had a couple of hundred folks at the best party I have ever seen, and everyone gave us lovely gifts (well, there was some dodgy china from a couple of relatives that still sits in our attics...the china, not the relatives)

The only wedding I've been too where cash figured in the gifts was in Greece, but I don't know whether that's a Greek cultural thing or whether it was just about the logistical considerations, that guests coming from the UK probably wouldn't be able to bring bulky gifts or deal with a foreign-language registry. In fact, like all the weddings I've been to overseas, the couple made it clear that putting in the time and money to do the serious travelling involved, was a gift in itself and guests shouldn't feel obliged to give an additional gift. (Almost all the guests did, though.)

I'm with tman, I'd expect a wedding to "operate" at a very substantial "loss", probably more substantial the more upscale the wedding. I'd be rather taken aback if I heard someone, however informally, weighing the income against the expenditure. (The tradition in the UK used to be that the couple's parents pay for the wedding, so in that sense the couple were guaranteed to turn a profit, but nowadays it's more common for the couple to pay for it themselves.)

I thought this was going to be a thread about dollar parity...

Peter

Plan your wedding/reception as if you expect NOTHING in return.

Then you'll be thrilled and amazingly thankful for any gift your guests give. And you won't be in massive debt. Bonus!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it seems to me that you're the one being cheap.

My wife and I think this is the most absurd thing we've ever heard about. Making money on your wedding? Ridiculous.

I have never thought of a big wedding as anything but a party for the attendees. Certainly it's traditional for wedding guests to bring presents, but I've never thought of that to be any sort of compensation for the party. It's a gift. If someone was getting married and you attended the wedding at their house, would you not give a gift because it had no cost to them? If a friend invited you to a party they were throwing, would you give them cash to recoup their costs?

I feel like I should say more, but I am totally dumbstruck by the question.

This wasn't a calculation thing nor weighing of profits. It's absolutely tradition and part of many cultures that gifts at the wedding are monetary. Certainly this is a HUGE asian thing so much so that they even have special envelopes for it. I don't know anyone who has planned a wedding looking forward to profits. Profits happen and sometimes they don't. The bride and groom will probably want to open everything to know who to send thank you notes to and what to write in them (if making them personal). So these are observations related to me from others.

I'm going to Portugal to get married and I don't care/expect anyone traveling to bring or give a gift at all.

This post also wasn't about judging close friends. Every wedding has a lot more people involved that can hardly be considered close friends. Case in point this wedding I'm talking about. I believe a couple of the guests that brought nothing were co-workers in senior positions at the bride's company. I'm sure they weren't invited as any type of cash-grab. I don't know them and I don't know why they were invited.

As I mentioned, I live in a very multi-cultural area so I've seen it all. Many Italian weddings hire off-duty police on site to protect the cash as well as act as general security. A few years ago there were a string of wedding robberies because on a Saturday night hitting 2 or 3 weddings they could pull away with anywhere from $50 to $150k.

These friends didn't expect to make money, even though many weddings here are huge cash cows. But it was pretty insulting that some people didn't bring anything at all. The per-head cost was about $150. That's not renting some space at a community center and serving sandwiches. Open bar all night - something I know a few of these people took advantage of to the extreme.

Anyway, I would just never (not ever) go to anyone's wedding without at least covering the cost of my plate. I consider this to just be practical etiquette.

If I went to someone's wedding at their house I'd still likely bring cash unless they asked specifically for something else. Probably at least $100 per person attending ($200 for myself and a guest for instance). If they were close friends I'd give more. I've done gifts in lieu of cash at the weddings of two friends. In both cases it was 4 of us getting together to buy a TV that cost about $2000 - that was in the early 90's.

When I go to someone's house for a general party I always bring something, not cash of course. Generally always a bottle or two of wine at least. If it's someone's birthday I wouldn't show up without a gift. A wedding is not simply a get-together or a simple party. At least not the formal weddings I'm talking about. An "average" attendance is about 130 to 150 people and a sizable one is over 300. Anything under 120 I'd consider a small wedding.

I suppose there's always going to be issues when mixing cultures that don't share at least some common customs. But for me, weddings are about the bride and groom, so personally, I'll conduct myself according to their customs rather than my own if that's appropriate. That includes dress or any ceremonial functions of course. If it's my own custom to wear a T-Shirt and sweat pants, I'm not going to show up to someone's wedding in that get-up. Likewise, what kind of a tool shows up to someone's wedding wearing a white dress? That's also extremely rude (someone did this last weekend as well).

Anyway, this wasn't my wedding but I was just shocked that someone would think it's ok not to bring a gift of any kind. And also thought it was unbelievable that someone would complain about the customs/traditions of the bride and groom's culture when they were being invited. My suggestion to them would be to simply decline the invitation if they felt so strongly about it. Don't show up with a humidifier because your husband sells them in his day job and it's the gift you give to everyone. Ugh.

I've never come across anyone giving cash as a gift at a wedding. We certainly didn't receive any at our wedding.

I'm afraid I'm in the camp agreeing that your question makes you sound cheap, but I guess its a culture clash kind of thing.

We very deliberately didn't have a wedding list at our wedding. If people wanted to buy us something then fine, but we would have rather had nothing than prescribe to people want they should buy us. Plenty of people didn't bring anything.

We were massively out of pocket for our wedding, we hired an island after all...


...but then we did have a brilliant weekend.

For our wedding, we actually had a rather hard time deciding on the wording on the invitation - the problem was how to say "no gifts, please" without even implying that you somehow would expected some people to consider a gift?

Now that I've had a chance to put my head back on, let me respond to some specific points.

Quote:
these friends made back less than half of what it cost them to host the function

The notion that you expect anything in compensation for the wedding is patently ridiculous in my culture. Showing up without a gift at all would be slightly rude, but not by a lot. The bride failing to send out thank-you notes would be a far worse crime.

Quote:
Many people at their work were "offended" that they would expect cash as a gift. WTF! Have these people never been to a wedding in this country that wasn't some anglo-trash cold-cut and beer setup?

White trash is about the only group that I can think of as far as "regular Americans" go where cash would be an appropriate gift. And I'm not even sure of that. Period. End of story. Honestly, I doubt that many people these days would be terribly offended by cash as a gift, but their parents definitely would be.

Think of it this way: if someone invited you to a party, would you bring cash as a hostess gift? Why not? To me, the same thinking applies to a wedding, with the additional assumption that the party wasn't really thrown by the bride and groom to begin with, but by the bride's family, so you're really giving the compensatory cash to the guest of honor.

Quote:
personally, I wouldn't think of attending someone's wedding and giving anything but cash unless they specifically asked for something else instead, like via a registry for instance, and mentioned something about not wanting currency.

In polite society, the notion of not having a registry is unheard-of. If there's a party big enough that you even begin to be worried about the cost of it, then there's a registry. Buying off-registry (unless you're very close friends or family) is somewhat insulting. And I can guarantee that cash is not on the registry. As with all gifts of cash, it implies that you didn't bother to think about what the giftee wanted, compounded by the fact that there was an easy-to-access, public list of what was wanted.

I will point out that my culture is based in the vaguely upper-class Southern US, which certainly has a bearing on my viewpoint, but I don't think I'm out of line with most of polite society in the entire US. (Well, at least in what I'm saying.)

I'd forgotten about that photo Patrick. Any chance you could email me a full res copy of that so we can get a print done ?

[my name]@norman.cx

from one of your UAV's Patrick? Nice pic. That does look beautiful.

Please tell me that's you in the bottom right corner, Patrick...

Peter

I'd say the cultures are 180 polar opposites Bitt. There are a number of people in this country that share the same cultural cues you've mentioned, but as I said, since this area is heavily multi-cultural with strong ties to tradition and heritage, it's important for a great many people to preserve that and follow these customs. If you're invited to a wedding, it's the bride and groom's thing and you should follow their customs.

Yes, I was told by the bride. The people who didn't bring anything literally brought nothing. Not even a greeting card.

I've not been to any wedding reception that was anything like a regular party so it's pointless to compare the two trying to draw some type of parity in acceptable gifts.

I don't like the concept of a registry for the same reasons some other people mentioned. Besides, I've been living with my fiancée for 5 years and we have pretty much everything we want and need. I could register for things like a 50" LCD TV or a Nikon D300, but that's just stupid.

I don't pre-evaluate how much a wedding is going to cost before deciding how much to give. But I'd never give a gift or cash of less than $100 or $150 (double including my SO).

Your wife was right that it was a man posting this, but that's more to do with where it's being posted rather than the contents. After all I told you it was the bride that mentioned this to me. The couple were both offended. It's definitely a cultural thing and I imagine in the US due to the melting-pot effect the situation is going to be a lot different and more homogeneous. Maybe I should have done a better job setting up the context so as not to receive posts saying that *I* was cheap - this wasn't my wedding. I respect the customs and cultural differences of others, so even though I'd always bring something, if I was going to a wedding where cash was not appropriate, I'd obviously bring something else. But out of the 20 or more weddings I've been to, I've never been to one where cash wasn't appropriate. And I'm talking about a few large bills with a nice card and a good hand-written note. Not a paper bag with 5's and 10's.

In this area of the country you have to be open and aware of a wide assortment of customs and traditions and acting as if the society is one white soup is just insulting in my opinion. And that's what was going on here with the people from work complaining. They were putting their own opinions (and extreme tackiness with regards to the humidifier lady) ahead of the customs of the people being celebrated.

For many people it's still standard practice that the parents (usually of the bride) will pay for and set up the whole wedding. These friends paid for everything themselves as far as I know and I'll expect to do the same for my own.

No, I was about half a mile away in that direction...

pca

Just to throw my .2c in... I'm from Louisiana, USA, and my cultural upbringing and experience jive exactly with Bitt's. And I do mean EXACTLY. I had no idea it was custom anywhere to expect your wedding to be paid for by the guests. Ya learn something new every day.

Side note... it HAS always sorta bugged me that weddings cost attendees involved a lot of money. Plane tickets, dresses, tuxes, etc. Gifts are another thing. But, I have friends whom are reasonably poor and wedding are a huge burden.