Johnny and Lottie were gifted £4,000 at their wedding last September – a windfall that became spending money for their 17-day honeymoon in Canada. But the couple had already saved for the trip themselves “because it’s not worth the risk of relying on donations,” Johnny says.
Their experience reflects a growing shift in wedding gift etiquette. Traditional gift lists are being replaced by requests for cash, often directed at honeymoon funds. 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, with the average guest contribution now £116.
“Wedding guests face etiquette dilemma over cash gifts as average contribution hits £116.”
Yet expectations vary widely. Johnny, 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 his father contributed £2,000.
Not everyone is so lavish. 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. To make it easy for guests, she included a mention of money on the invitations and created print-out QR codes for people to scan at the bar. She received £3,000, which will be used as spending money for her honeymoon in September – a trip 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.
Despite asking for money, Hannah also received physical gifts. “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. Johnny says some guests ignore the cash request 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.
Chelsea Chivers, who is getting married in August, takes a stronger view. “Some people see money as impersonal and think it’s awkward to give but it’s kind of standard now, so either give nothing or…” Her sentence trails off, leaving the dilemma unresolved.