Being a wedding guest has never been cheap. There's travel, accommodation, the new outfit. Now add another cost: the present. And with cash pots replacing the traditional gift list, the dilemma is acute: how much are you expected to give?
Wedding list service Prezola says it has seen a rise in couples inviting guests to pay for specific experiences rather than a generic cash pot. Its figures show the average guest contribution is £116.
“Average wedding guest cash gift is £116, but etiquette divides donors from £50 to £400.”
But expectations vary wildly. Jonny, 34, says he and his wife Lottie give between £250 and £400 depending on how close they are to the bride and groom and what they can afford. “We don't have that many friends, so it's nice to give generously,” he says. At his own wedding, most close friends gave between £100 and £200, one couple gave £400 and they received £2,000 from Jonny’s dad. They used it as spending money on their 17-day honeymoon in Canada — which Jonny says they'd saved for “because it's not worth the risk of relying on donations”.
Not everyone gives hundreds. Hannah Rose-Thorn, 30, says she “always gives £50 in a card” and found that the average contribution to her own honeymoon fund was the same. She received £3,000, which will be used as spending money for the honeymoon she had already paid for. “We mentioned money on our invitations and also created print-out QR codes for people to scan at the bar,” she says. She also received physical gifts despite asking for money. “We got a lot of champagne and some flute glasses from my boss at work, which were nice, but we have a lot of that so it will most likely get regifted,” she says.
Jonny says some wedding guests ignore the request for cash because they want to give something more meaningful. “They mean well, but it probably means you'll get a bunch of John Lewis and M&S vouchers, like we did, as well as some physical gifts too,” he says.
Meanwhile, the lucky few invited to megastar Taylor Swift's rumoured wedding bash are likely to be able to afford it. Swift and her partner Kelce have a no-gift policy — one option that sidesteps the etiquette minefield entirely.