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HAHA It's early morning and I'm a bit bitter... so my immediate reaction would be to send a cheeky thank you card... maybe one to each of them, saying thats for the $25 haha!!! But in all honesty, at the end of the day, it's not worth the hassel. It might make you feel good in the short term, but long term would probably be affected... so although I'm a bit tired and cranky, and part of me says go for the cheeky, I think it's probably best if you dont! Good luck with whatever you decide!!
I can't believe she just brought someone after you told her she couldn't! That's so rude. But it's good that there was no place for him, I'm sure that was pretty embarrassing for her. Try not to hold it against the guy, because he may not have even known that he wasn't invited.
That said, while your aunt was totally rude to bring along a wedding crasher, giving you a gift is not rude. Write a gracious thank you note and try to move on. She did something that was actually rude and that's enough to be mad about, it's not worth dwelling on the thing she did that was not rude, and which you yourself said might make you look greedy.
No one makes money on their wedding, and it isn't right for you to choose a venue which cost $130 a head, and then hold it against your guests. They didn't choose to spend that much, you did.
My sister's wedding last year consisted of doctors, lawyers, etc. We were shocked when she barely made back a third of the wedding cost. Checks of $50 were pretty common. So, while I agree that $100 for 4 adults is kind of measly, there's also no set "rule" of how much to give. I would just suck it up and write a nice note. She could have given you nothing. Don't you ever wonder about the ppl with the most money? It's because they don't spend it :-)
That is effed up of them! I would be insanely pissed as well. However, I would write a thank you, but add in some sort of quietly snarky comment. And I would also be annoyed if I got a gift of $100 from a group of 4 people--it's obviously not really fair to be upset about how much of a gift they give, but I would be peeved. But don't let it ruin your memories of your day! Congrats!
Oh, that is just so rude! I know this isn't necessarily the 'right' response to that kind of behavior, but I wouldn't send a thank you at all. The money is one thing, chalk it up to being cheap, or maybe just unaware of common practice. But bringing a guest that wasn't invited- that would drive me MAD! I'm soooo worried about this for our wedding.
Congrats on having the best day!! I totally understand about being upset, but I would say for the thank you, just write a nice note and be the bigger person. You can only control your own actions - she already made a bad decision, you can make a good one! and then go off and be totally pissed...I would!
I agree that is was rude the aunt brought a clearly un-invited guest, but I have never heard of a standard $100 PER guest gift to the couple. Maybe it's just where I'm from, but all gifts (no matter the size) are greatly appreciated. I would send a sincere thank you note for the gift you did receive.
You can't change the fact that she brought an uninvited guest or that your venue was $130 pp now. If you don't send a Thank You or sending an invoice would be as rude as your Aunt apparently is.
Handle the situation gracefully. Send a Thank You note and move on.
Your day was great, you said so! Just send the thank you and move on from the situation. The more you end up dwelling over this, the more it's going to overshadow the happiness you felt at your wedding.
This is definelty a crazy story, but I'm sure with time it will become one of those hilarious stories you tell until the day you die. The best and most elegant way to deal with the situation is to write a simple and nice thank-you note. I know its SO tempting to speak your mind and write something snarky, but the only way "win" is to be the bigger person and move on. Sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest thing to do.
And you will always have your wonderful husband, friends, and the wedding bees to vent to!
I agree that bringing someone who wasn't invited was very very rude of her. Hopefully she was embarassed when it became obvious to everyone else at the table that she had brought someone who wasn't invited.
However, being rude back to her because you aren't happy with the gift she gave you just seems rediculous and unnecessary to me. While it may be common in your area to give gifts that equal the cost per plate, that doesn't mean somebody has to and it definitely doesn't give you the right to be rude to them if they don't follow a social norm. They gave you a gift and you should be grateful for that and send her a nice thank you card.
I'm glad you had a great wedding day and I think you should just focus on that and try to forget everything else.
The $100 per person standard is common here too, so I get what you're saying. I can't help but wonder if she only gave you that much as a "stick it to you" kind of move since you weren't allowing the plus ones? In any case, I agree, as tempting as it is to write her a cheeky note, I would write her one sweet as pie thanking her so much for her generous and wonderful gift and how lovely it was for her to share in your day and how much it meant to you. Kill her with kindness.
I guess I am an ass because I wouldnt send a Thank you note. I am a bitter person when it comes to this stuff. For example I was broke at the time and my friend had her shower. I literally saved for a bit to get her great stuff. It was hard but I really pulled together for her. She came to my shower with a cheap $5 dollar bottle of wine and she makes 2x's what I did at the time. Let me tell you if she pulls that at the wedding this weekend I would not send a Thank you. I know its wrong but I am sorry that really bothers me. I think maybe I take it too personal and think they would care a little about me and put forth some effort. Even a creative card or item they made.. anything to show they cared then grabbing a cheap gas station wine together or $100 bill for 4 people per say. Its like damn.
Ugh, how frustrating. I do think you have to send a polite thank you note though.
Most of the other bees don't agree with "keeping score" on gifts, but I won't lie, I do it! So if you aren't close and the grown kids get married, don't be overly generous back. Give them the equivalent or thereabouts. Again, I know this is an unpopular opinion but I don't see any reason to be generous with people who've taken advantage of your generosity.
Congrats on being married!
First off, I totally get where you are coming from and would be upset as well.
However, what exactly did you say when she told you that one of her kids wouldn't be coming? I think it's common for people to (wrongly) assume that if one person in their party can't make it that they can just substitute another person in his or her place. (Someone did this at our wedding, but we found out ahead of time and since I believe she really didn't know better I just let it go)
I know you told her no plus ones, but from her point of view maybe this wasn't a plus one since the same number of people would be attending. And when you told her you'd let the venue know, maybe she thought it was so they could change the names on the seating chart or something.
Unless you explicitly told her that you'd change their count from 4 to 3 or something along those lines then I don't think you can know for sure that she was intentionally going against your wishes. Sometimes we dance around how we really feel to be polite (Yay, one less guest!) and people just don't know. I'd try to let it go.
As for the gift, I totally agree with greenleafmountain. You're the one choosing to throw a big party and you're the one writing the checks - your guests get no say in what kind of party you throw so I don't think it's right to expect them to basically pay their own way, no matter what may be the norm in your area or no matter how well off a person appears to be.
I would send a thank you, because it's the right thing to do, but it certainly wouldn't be sweet or heartfelt. In fact, I think it would be as generic as I could make it:
"Dear Aunt Cheap and kids,
Thanks for attending our special day and for the card and gift. We plan to put the money toward our honeymoon.
Love,
Bride & Groom"
I don't think it's greedy of you to feel hurt that their gift was so little. Yes, it's the thought that counts... but that gift, IMO, shows they didn't think. They don't need to help you recoup your wedding costs, but $25/person -- when everyone knows they're well-off -- is lame and shows they don't care. Well, that and bringing an extra person after being told they couldn't... that also shows they don't care.
So yeah, send the nice but generic thank you and forget about it... until one of her kids gets married. ;) (Just kidding!)
Thanks ladies! Sometimes it's good to take the pulse and see what most people think! ... I think my thank you card will say something along the lines of "... Dear aunt and kids thanks for sharing our special day with us and for for the cash gift of $100. We hope you had a great time at our wonderful venue. p.s. we noticed that an unexpected guest that we didn't know came along with your party - we are not sure how that occured as we were not expecting him .... kind regards bride and groom.
Eh... I would be the bigger person here and not imply that you thought their gift was cheap OR that they brought someone uninvited. I think you should swallow your pride and write them a nice thank you note.
If I were you I'd be pissed too. That's a crappy rude thing to do. I do think that, as much as it sucks, you need to write a non-snarky Thank You note. You don't have to gush to them, and you can keep it very simple, but I think in the long run you'll feel better for having been the bigger person - and this is coming from a person who ALWAYS wants to mouth off at people when they do wack stuff. For the sake of just letting it go, though, just give a generic thank you and move on. At least you have a funny story to tell behind her back about her cheeky move with the wedding crasher. I really hope she was mortified when there was no place for the guest. She deserved to be. If I was an invited guest at that table I would probably be laughing behind my napkin if I saw that go down.
Honestly as much as it sucks what she did, I wouldnt do anything except write a sincere thank you note (leave out the part about the actual amount of the gift and the unwanted guest that you mentioned) and move on. Family is family and Im sure word will get around between people of what happened that way. By adding an extra line about the unexpected guest is just asking for an arguement or hard feelings Im sure you would rather avoid. It seems wrong to me to refer to the actual amount of the gift in a thank you card, I think you should put something along the lines of "thank you for sharing our special day with us and for your generous gift, we are going to use it toward..."
Im sure its different all over what is expected of gifts, but the majority of our older married guests gave us $100-$150 for the both of them. Our per plate cost was over $100 but I would certainly never expect them 1) to know how much it is per person other than an average guess and 2) give $100 or more per person.
Oh gosh, I would be SO Tempted to send them a bill if I were you!! You could actually justify it, saying "We were shocked and surprised to see someone arrive to our wedding who wasn't on the guest list. In addition to the extra cost, we did not intend or wish to share our day with anyone we did not know. I did tell you back in October that we were unable to accommodate any guests who weren't on our list and that unfortunately hasnt' changed. We asked our venue to send you a bill for the guest, I'm sure you wont' mind paying it since this was all explained to you. PS, I only got part of your gift there was one envelope with $100 in it which I am assuming was from only one of you."
I have a totally similar situation! My wedding was not that much per head, but it was $50/head (which is on the higher side of average for where I live). My aunt, who I do NOT like and did not want to invite, but had to in order to keep the peace with my grandmother, RSVP'd for SIX! Not only did that really frustrate me, but when it came to the night of the wedding, only THREE showed up! GRRR!! Then, when I opened her 'gift' I found a cake platter that looked like it was spray painted gold on the underside (which I found for a whopping $6 at a TJ Maxx clearance section months later) and a used cookbook. I was LIVID as we also paid for the wedding out of our own pockets, and these people are wealthy enough that they have money in Swiss bank accounts. I really wanted to curse her out, but instead I just sent her a generic thank you note that thanked them for celebrating our day with us. I didn't thank her for the gift, and I wasn't rude simply b/c I didn't want to start a war- so I just let it go, kind of! I'm still very bitter over it and my entire family talks about how crappy it was, but there's nothing that can really be done over it- aside from letting the entire family know how big of tools they were.
No matter how good it may feel to let her know how you feel I think the best thing to do for the long haul is to just send a nice thank you note.
Probably not the case here, but you really never know what someone's fiancial situation is. I've been shocked to hear of people I would never have expected that have lost their homes to foreclosure and such. You just never know.
Ugh! I totally hear, you! Some people just don’t have any decorum! I would say take the higher road by sending a thank you card anyway. Then, cut off all ties with these rude relatives. When they get married, don’t bother going to their wedding if you get invited. (The devil in me says: Go to their wedding and NOT give the gift. Payback’s a bitch! But then….that’s just immature, right? -- evil grin --)
I agree with everyone saying to send a thank you card. A gift is a gift.
I am worried, however, that my friends will think my FI and I ARE the cheap ones. We are on our second purchased home, we travel a lot and they know FI makes a decent amount of money, but we plan save for these things. If we give them a gift of $100 between the two of us, are they going to think we're cheap?! We are also planning our wedding, which is being paid for completely on our own.
Although I could see myself being bitter if I got $100 for a group of four, you never really know someone's financial situation. Some are good at hiding it!
What she did was really lame, but I'm sure she felt like a fool when there wasn't even a spot for the uninvited guest. Unfortunately, you should really just let this whole thing go. It's not worth stirring up trouble. She was definately in the wrong when it came to the guest situation, but as for the gift, well, gifts aren't really mandetory.
Eh, I kind of agree with @FutureMrsSpinewiz. It's not about the money, it's the thought that counts, and what kind of thought is shown by bringing a random plus 1, and a $100 check for 4 people? If they're very well off they can easily spend that on a random dinner at TGIFridays! I'm sure if they'd given you a more thoughtful gift with a $100 value (like a nice vase you'd admired but hadn't registered for, or a sentimental family heirloom) that you wouldnt be upset, right?
Regardless, you really can't call them out on a lame gift without sounding greedy, and the thank you card isn't the place to bring up the plus one unpleasentness. If you really feel like you have to say something, do it in a phone call (nothing in writting she can show other people), and just kill her with kindness. "We're just so sorry that you were inconvinienced and that your night was complicated by the fact that there was no seat or placecard for Susie's friend. We just had no idea he was coming, and were completely unprepared to deal with unexpected plus ones. I'm sorry that we didn't make that clear enough when we talked back in September." Again, you're entering into tricky territory and could damage the relationship there, but if she's known to be nutty/rude and you and your FI aren't close to her, and you're just looking to set boundaries in the future, this is a way to call her out without being openly hostile to her.
Honestly though if you can manage, I think it would be better to vent to your FI and friends about all the over the top blunt things you wish you could say to her face, and then don't bring it up with her at all. You've been a model hostess so far and there's no sense giving up the high road, you're unlikely to have a repeat problem in the future (unless you plan on throwing more formal dinners she'll need to rsvp to), and you're probably not going to get her to see the error of her ways. It's like that old saying - don't try to teach a pig to sing, all you'll do is waste your time and annoy the pig.
Yeah, I would be the bigger person here and just send a generic thank you card.
I totally hear you on the gift, we have the same standard here about covering your plate, and it's pretty common sense here.
With that said, you can't control how much someone gives you as a gift, however, you can control how much you give them in return when their turn rolls around. Bring your husband and give $50 to their weddings. I know most people dont agree with that, but I would never be generous to someone who was that inconsiderate to me.
I agree with bakerella too, I think maybe that cheap gift was because she was pissed about the +1's.
I do NOT blame you for being annoyed with your aunt; she behaved terribly, and I'm glad you didn't let it bother you the day of the wedding. However, my bone to pick with you is that $100 per guest standard you mentioned. Really? $100 a person? So a family of two parents and 4 kids has to fork over $600? I'm sorry, that's just outrageous, and I would hope that you could see that, considering you just lost your job. I'm not trying to be catty, I'm just saying that your expectations seem very high. Usually a couple or a family will give one gift, or maybe a few small gifts or some cash, but to expect each person to be accounted for individually by the same scale is just not fair at all. I've given gifts off the registry, valued at $50 or $75, and it was more than okay.
Honestly, $100 a person at least is fairly standard for an evening sitdown event. Imagine a night of food, drinks and entertainment on a Saturday night and how much it woudl cost. I'm not saying you have to give that much, and you should give what you can. Also, it was rude to bring a crasher and then have to foot that bill. Is it in any way allowed to tell a vendor absolutely no they should stand outside if they don't have a seat? I'm not renting extra chairs or sashes or chargers or making extra favors or place cards for non invities. I invited you to our wedding which we are paying for (and would appreciate your company sans gift) -- you should never assume a gift, and if you do, you probably don't want to invite them anyway if they aren't worth the cost -- but I did not invite all your friends nor do I want to pay for them as they don't make me happy on my special day (in fact, do the opposite). They fall squarely into the not worth the money. I judge my small wedding by is this person worth $200 to me (with tax and tip for food and drink only, not favors, rentals, etc since those are more for what I want the look to be even though they are per person) and go from there. If not, I do not invite or put in the B list for if I need to fill more people later on.
How about sending each one of them a gracious thankyou for their $25 gift but specifically say the $25 in there!
I just want to pipe in and say that I also live in an area where "covering your plate" or close to $100/per person is the norm, so the OP is not out of line with that. So I would also be ticked off, because if FI and I (who are mid-20s) can scrape together $200 for someone's wedding (in addition to travel and hotels) when I am a grad student and FI is a nurse, then I do expect the same courtesy from others. I know a lot of people don't agree with them but that's the way I see it.
I am so sorry you have to deal with this OP, but I agree with the consensus that unfortunately you need to be the bigger person and send a polite thank you note.
thanks for overiding our wishes and bringing a guest we didn't invite or want and made clear was not invited...
...send the invoice for the wedding crasher guest to the mom so that she can see just how expensive each guest is and follow up on her offer to "chip in"
yes this exactly! dont be rude with the amount they gave as a gift, because honestly they didnt have to give anything. but im kind of mean and i would so say this... especially if your not super close with eachother and dont mind hurt feelings. =D
I agree with other posters thought that you just write something nice. If you want to address the extra guest thing in a seemingly nice way, you could write something like "we're so sorry that we didn't have a seat reserved for your extra guest. We didn't know that he would be attending so did not change the guest count with our caterers. I'm glad they were able to work quickly to prepare the extra meal and get him seated." Or something like that. She might think you're actually apologizing, but more likely she'll realize she messed up by not telling you! I'm a big believer in when some crazy driver is yelling at you, to smile back. Makes em' madder ;)
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The big day has come and gone and it was truely amazing. Everything everyone says about the day flying is right - it felt like it was over soon after it started but it is the best day!
Don't bite my head off or call me a greedy bride for this post. I understand that guests aren't charged admission to a wedding but as you might guess, I had a few unbelievable guests. The first and biggest was my husband's aunt and her grown (early 20s) kids. When we first sent out our save the dates she responded back that yes she would be attending and with her 3 grown kids (all of whom were invited) "plus a few extra guests". So I quickly let her know that unfortunately plus ones were not available as we were having a small wedding (the exeption was for married, living together, or very long term relationships). We only had 70 guests planned and that was because that was a small as we could reasonably get the list down to. Honestly we were hoping for declines. She tried hard to get the plus ones, offered to "chip in" for the plus ones etc. Bottom line, we said no.
Fast forward to a week or so before the wedding and we find out one of the 3 kids can't make it. No problem, we advised our venue of our final numbers and paid our final bill a couple of days before the big day. I let the aunt know we had let the venue know. Also - fyi our per head cost was $130. To be honest, I was happy to save the $. I had lost my job a few weeks before the wedding and any savings were greatly appreciated. Also my husband and i were entirely paying for the wedding and using savings to do so. In any event on the wedding day one of the "kids" brought a date and basically wedding crashed. Nobody knew the guy and it was a fresh relationship of only a few months. The aunt was fully in the know on this and they all came together. I refused to let it bother me on the day. I heard through the grapevine afterwards they were surprised there was not a seat, name card and meal for this surprise guest. Wow! Really? ... I don't think so. Sounds like a little cya if you ask me. So of course our venue provided them a meal and seat and we off course will be billed for the extra guest. So despite the cheek of it all when we opened their card I was very much expecting a generous gift due to 4 adults attending, one of which was a wedding crasher. There was a $100. In my area the "expectation", widely known and held is for a wedding guest to give $100 per guest as standard. This comes from the reality that weddings are extremly expensive here and it is nearly impossible to get a per head cost under $100. I can't get over being so peeved - mostly at the cheek of it all but to add insult to injury the ridiculously cheap gift. And no, these people are not struggling. All of the kids receive heafty "allowances" from their rich divorced dad and the aunt, I hear, lives in quite the lovely home. My mind boggles. What would you guys do? Let it go (sooooo hard to do!), send the thank you note and perhaps be cheeky myself and say thanks to the 4 people for attending and for thier $100 gift, or not even send a thank you note which is how I am feeling now because honestly what would it say - thanks for overiding our wishes and bringing a guest we didn't invite or want and made clear was not invited, thanks for costing us over $500 for your group of 4 and giving a gift of $100, or should I be cheaky as well and send the invoice for the wedding crasher guest to the mom so that she can see just how expensive each guest is and follow up on her offer to "chip in" .... of course my husband will probably not allow any of these things but I just can't let her think she got away with it and won.
There were a few other crazy stories as well, but this is by far the worst!