Weddingbee boards

I'm not married, so I can't speak to your question about generosity. I mean, I'm sure there is a possibility that some guest will come out of nowhere with a huge cash gift.

I'd just like to add that I think it is dangerous thinking to depend on guest gifts to cover your reception costs.

Granted, I don't come from this sort of upbringing, so this seems really no-brainer to me: you pay for the wedding.  Lots of couples put up thousands of dollars for their wedding reception.  Maybe just me, but I think you should plan the wedding you can afford whether or not you get money from your guests.

I don't think it is right to say that someone is cheap because they didn't cover their plate.  Think about it this way- say a couple was going to be guests at a wedding.  Based on how close they were with the bride and groom and what they could afford at the moment, they decide to give a gift of $100.  Now, if this couple attended my wedding, they would more than cover their plate, as our meals plus bar will be about $40 a person.  However, if this couple attended your wedding, by your definition they would be cheap.  How can the same gift, chosen for the same reasons be cheap in one instance and generous in the other? 

The guests have no say in how much the bride and groom spend on each meal, and unless the bride and groom are being rather indiscreet by going around and telling everyone how much their reception costs, the guests really have no way of knowing. Therefore it is not logical to judge a guest's action based on the standard of something they cannot control and likely have no knowledge of.

From the way you described it, it sounds like your extended family is used to more modest weddings.  I can understand that.  I can honestly say I have never been to a wedding where the meal cost more than $50 a person, much less $100-$130.  So your assumption that this is a commonly known cost is probably inaccurate.  I really don't think you can judge your relatives so harshly when they are simply operating of of the assumptions they have.  I can't speak to whether or not they will have an attitude at your wedding because I don't know them.  However if they have sensed that you look down on them for more modest weddings or that you consider them to be cheap, I can see why they would feel self conscious and out of place at a more extravagant affair.  So their gossip, while rude, may be their way of coping with that discomfort.

You are perfectly welcome to have any type of wedding you want and to spend as much as you want.  I'm not judging you for that- I hope you have a beautiful day.  However you can't reasonably expect that everyone else you know will be accustomed to that type of wedding, and it isn't right for you to judge them because they are used to something different.

We got some really meager gifts ($20) but then we got some outrageously generous ones, too.  The cash and checks we received did end up covering nearly the entire wedding.

I was only annoyed by the uninvited crasher that showed up giftless, and the huge family who wrote in an additional guest, making their headcount 8, who only gave $100. 

I would say if this were actually such a strong tradition then she wouldn't have to worry about all the supposed "cheap-o-s" because that would leave very little for them to cover (even if a few didn't follow it). So I am inclined to think this is not as popular as you think it is. I do not understand the idea that guests are not only supposed to cover the cost of the event (which is as expensive as the bride and groom choose it to be), but start you off with a little something. Perhaps they do follow that tradition but think, man that is a bit much.  

That actually was not what you wrote at all.

I think most of you are being way too harsh... maybe where YOU'RE from, you don't get a lot of cash gifts or understand this concept, but I know exactly what the OP is saying, because it's the same thing in my area.  And she even explained this, to avoid these types of judgemental comments.

Plates DO cost $100 + up there, good luck finding something cheaper that is nice.

To answer the OP's question, there probably will be people that give really generously that make up for the others that don't.  In my family, it's not uncommon to get $400 from a couple... I think a lot depends on what your parents have done for others' weddings, and generally people reciprocate.

I do understand where you're coming from about gossiping and thinking things are unnecessary, but all I can say is that you can't please everyone.  No matter what you choose for your wedding, people will either comment that its too cheap or too much, do what makes YOU happy and wont send you broke lol.  You really can't avoid those types of opinions no matter what you do, but just stick up for what you want, there's nothing wrong with wanting a nice wedding if you can afford to do so.

If that is the norm where you are from, then I can see the frustrations you would have from relatives not giving the standard gift.  I've heard of that being done, but unfortunately it is not something I do.  Considering all the weddings I get invited to lately, and the average cost is $100ish per plate, there is no way I could afford to gift $200.  I just don't have the funds to spend $1k-2k per year on weddings (going off of how many weddings I get invited to these days).  Maybe your family members are in a similar situation.

And I voted "get out the checkbook."  To me, each gift I got was generous.  I wasn't expecting to get a lot in monetary funds.  And honestly I didn't give a thought to who might be cheap/generous.

I guess I don't understand what you are looking for when you say "constructive".  Some people (mistakenly) thought you were intending to rely on gifts to fund the wedding, and they were trying to be constructive by advising you that this was not the best plan, because none of them received the cost of their reception back in gifts.  Once people saw your clarification, they stopped telling you that. 

I, and some others, were attempting to show you another perspective so that maybe you could understand where your family was coming from, or so that you would not be hurt if some of your guests did not gift in the manner you were expecting.  I think it would be very sad, for instance, to see you and a friend have a cooling in your relationship because neither one of you understood the other's mentality about gift giving, and so I thought showing you how the other side thinks was constructive.  While you may think that it is traditional for guests to cover their plates, it is possible that some of your guests do not come from that tradition, and so it is also constructive to try to understand why a gift of a lower amount might not be the guest being cheap, but might be because that guest was operating under a different set of traditions and ideas.  I wasn't trying to criticize you with my post, and I apologize if you read it that way.  I was simply trying to offer you a more positive reading of certain guest's actions, which I thought was a constructive thing.

So in all, I guess I'm not really sure what you are looking for here.  The overall sentiment seems to be that you will not make as much as you spend, that some guests will surprise you with their generosity and others won't, and that there is a great diversity of thinking about gift giving.  It is probably best not to assume that people who don't cover their plate are doing so to be mean or cheap, but rather that it is possible that they just have a different perspective on gifts than you do.  I think these are all constructive and helpful answers to your question, as I understood it.