Being a wedding guest can be expensive, though the lucky few invited to megastar Taylor Swift's rumoured wedding bash are likely to be able to afford it. While Swift and Kelce have a no-gift policy, it's now commonplace for invitations to read: "Your presence is enough, but if you would like to give us a gift, please donate to our honeymoon fund." But replacing the traditional gift list with bank transfer details can leave guests with a new etiquette dilemma: 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. It says the average guest contribution is £116. But expectations can vary widely, depending on everything from closeness and culture to the cost of attending.
“Taylor Swift has a no-gift policy for her wedding, but UK guests face dilemmas over cash gifts averaging £116.”
Jonny, 34, says he and his wife Lottie contribute between £250 and £400 depending on how close they are to the bride and groom and what they can afford at the time. "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".
But not everyone is giving hundreds of pounds. 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. "We mentioned money on our invitations and also created print-out QR codes for people to scan at the bar," she says. She received £3,000 which will be used as spending money for the honeymoon which she had already paid for. According to Hitched, a UK-based wedding planning website, the average UK couple spends around £4,000 on their honeymoon.
Hannah 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 will ignore the request for money 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.