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I've heard of it, but I don't worry about following it. We usually give $100 check for a casual friend, or more for a very close friend or relative. To us that feels like a generous gift (though I'm sure in many cases our 2 dinners cost more). I certainly wouldn't expect to get larger gifts than that at my wedding from that level of friends.
I think it's got to be rare that a couple actually "makes back" the full cost of their meal - maybe in certain cultures, but not mine!
hmmm none of the survey options reflect what i usually do. I keep the cost of the plate in mind and make sure/try to cover the cost but i use that as a minimum to go on. So cheaper wedding does not necessarily equal cheaper gift. My relationship with the people is also taken into account as well as the travel expenses.
http://www.theweddingenvelope.com/
Now THIS is interesting! I just did it and the suggested amount I should give for 'close friend' is $270.! For a relative its $392.
Its really a regional thing anyway. The cover the plate is really a made up practice that's only surfaced in the past 15 years or so.
I just tried the wedding envelope quiz and I feel like it is spot on for the weddings I am attending this summer.
I just tried the wedding envelope quiz and the answers were CRAZY! I'm a bridesmaid in a wedding, i've gone to three other parties and given gifts for all, it's a destination wedding on a Sunday and it said I should give $400. I almost had a heart attack. I've already spent $1500 on the wedding and that's pre-wedding gift. Insanity.
This really drives me crazy! It is my biggest wedding pet peeve. It seems to me equivalent to selling tickets to the weddings.
Ooh, I just tried that. I am a gift buyer, not a money giver, but I ran it for myself for the wedding of a close friend I attended cross country last weekend, then I did it for my average family member coming to my wedding from cross country.
It suggested $153 for my friend, and $258 to me for my family! 
That really surprised me. My income is alot higher than most of my family's, and the formality of the weddings was the same. Mine is on a Saturday, and hers was on a Sunday, but I gave more than suggested, and I would be SHOCKED if a family member gave me that much or a gift worth that much. Actually, I would be slightly embarassed, considering the cost to fly, rent a car, and rent a hotel room. I mean, it is crucial to be gracious about any gift a person wants to give you, but still, that seems really high.
EDIT: oh, the other difference was I went to a wedding in Ohio, mine is in California.
Wow! That calculator is sorta crazy...I just played around with it and it said i should be giving $325 for a wedding this summer for a close friend. That seems like a LOT. Also, when I changed it to off peak, it said we had to give $275. WTH? haha
I ususally keep the cover your plate thing in mind, but like someone else said, I use it for a minimum. If someone is having a bbq wedding for $30 per person, I am most certainly not just going to give $30. But if someone is having a wedding for $150 per person, then I will try to give as close to that as possible. Everyone in my family does it, so it doesn't seem like a weird thing. I definitely think it's regional.
I had never heard of that before. How are you supposed to know how expensive someone's meal was? For me, it depends on who is getting married and how good out relationship is.
So I just heard of this rule on this site a little while ago and not to offend anyone but it sounds very petty and kind of rude. A bride and groom or their family throws a wedding to invite all that are close to them to be a part of their day. As a guest I have always felt honored to be invited. Basing the cost of my gift on how much money I think they shelled out on my experience there seems ridiculous to me. It's as if it matters more how much money they spent on me as a guest on the day rather than the couple. Not everyone can afford to throw a wedding for tens of thousands of dollars, and frankly, based on calculations, I wouldnt be able to afford to gift those of us lucky enough to spend hundreds of thousands on theirs! I think a gift should be based on what you can afford, and how dear the couple is to you. At least those are parameters that have some heart in them instead of just dollar signs!
PS. this of course, is as long as the couple would want their guests to come regardless of what kind of gift they can give. I read a few places of brides preferring a guest not to show up at all rather than come and bring a gift that costs less than their plate. In the face of that unseemly sentiment, I as a guest would rather not go!
I actually think this is in pretty poor taste. The point of a gift is to celebrate a marriage, not to buy your admission to the wedding. Plus, people throwing a less expensive wedding don't deserve any less of a present! I have a general rule of thumb for how much to spend and then I do something nicer for closer friends.
Wow, and I just used the calculator and it gave me a figures for upcoming weddings are at least twice what I'd probably spend. Who made this up anyway?
So, to keep up the conversation, I purposefully phrased this from the guest's point of view, not from the couple's. So, to those who don't like the rule (I am agnostic), do you think it is in poor taste for the gift giver to follow it?
Now, truth be told, I haven't attended a really lavish wedding as an adult, so I haven't confronted the situation, but I honestly do think I would probably give a more expensive gift than I normally would if it were a super lavish affair. I have my own guidelines based on my income that I follow. I give the same for punch and cake weddings as I do for the usual formalish but not extravagent weddings I go to. But I would probably tend towards the higher end for something shmancy. I don't know why, and I'm not sure that is actually defensible, and I would love to hear your thoughts (especially since it is hypothetical, so it isn't like I would be offended if yall think I'm crazy.)
I don't see why a gift should be based on what was spent on the wedding.
A few cousins are VERY showy people who always have to try and out do everyone else, it would never occur to me to give them a bigger gift than other cousins who gave the best party they could afford. The present is to the couple. If you want costs covered, go ahead and sell tickets.
That's a pretty standard thing around where I live, and with my family. But FI's family is more extravagant, which makes me a bit uncomfortable.. especially because they like to have a brunch where the bride and groom open all the cards and gifts in front of all OOT guests, and immediate fmaily... I'm worried this will make my family uncomfortable because we know his family will give larger gifts... I think it depends on the fmaily!
I guess the question is, why does a couple who spend more on their wedding deserve a more expensive gift? It's a personal choice as to what a couple spends. I think it's a lot safer to just consider how well you know the couple and your own financial situation.
I've heard of this and while I don't make sure my gift adds up to the exact amount, I do try to even it out a lot of times. I usually give depending on how close I am/if I'm related/etc to the couple but since most weddings I have attended recently are weddings where I am also a part of the shower/etc then I give more then one gift so it usually adds up pretty quickly.
Interesting question though!
@ ribbons: The best I can think is that they are giving you "more"? It isn't deserving so much as saying thank you for the experience.
But maybe that doesn't make sense.
I think it's rude and quite tasteless for someone to expect a gift that "covers" the cost of the meal. A gift is just that...a gift. It's the thought that counts. They should be grateful they get something period.
I just feel like this "convention" is totally absurd. It doesn't even make sense. As a few people have pointed out, how the heck are you supposed to know how expensive your plate is?????
Besides the invite you generally have NO idea what a wedding you are going to attend will be like--even in terms of formality, etc. How are you supposed to estimate what a "plate" will cost? You can go by region, but even that is easily misleading because 1) if you haven't actually PLANNED a wedding, you still have no idea what stuff actually COSTS when you are the one paying and 2) even within a region it is going to vary widely.
I just think even the existence of the "rule" is preposterous. One "rule" is that you aren't even supposed to expect a gift as the couple, and you are supposed to use all kinds of roundabout methods to let people know where you are registered, and then another "rule" is now that it's rude for a guest not to give you a gift that covers how much the couple spent on YOU (based on magically ascertaining what that cost was).
I think its fine if you want to do that, and I would appreciate it, definitely, BUT I think that presenting it as some kind of new "rule" or "standard" is absolutely ridiculous and totally and arbitrarily fabricated.
I wouldn't use this rule... even if I know they paid $200 a plate, I sort of feel like - that was their choice! FI and I are broke so we usually spend about $50 on a gift, and we send gifts whether or not we go to the wedding.
I typically give gifts that range around $50 if I am attending the wedding, if not about $30. I've never had "money" so I doubt this practice has surprised anyone.
Curiosity led me to run that calculator posted above for friends coming from CA to our wedding in NH and it said they ought to give $15 gifts! haha... awesome!
Despite this being common in various parts of the country, it is a practice that etiquette mavens deplore. Those who host a celebration should do so at the cost they can manage and the style they prefer, but those decisions are no one's but their own, and shouldn't be subsidized. This leads to such rotten behavior as people being ungrateful for gifts of lesser amounts. I've even heard of a situation where a groom itemized his expenses to family members and invoiced them for the difference between his costs and their gifts! Yes, it's an extreme, but just an example of how this can get ugly fast.
I've never actually even heard of this concept, but I would be horrified if people thought I expected them to do this for me! My wedding is going to be really big, but a good chunk of my guests cannot afford to drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a gift for my FI and me. I wouldn't want them to feel obligated in the slightest, and I find this practice to be a bit... tacky. I'm sorry if that's rude to say, just my personal opinion.
Before I'd started reading wedding blogs I had never heard of this "tradition" before. Suffice to say, I don't do it. My gifts are based on what the couple wants that I want to associate my name to for them and little surprise treats that they enjoy.
I did the wedding envelope calculator for a wedding I just got invited to and will most likely be unable to attend. When I said I was not attending the gift suggestion was $105 but when I said I would attend alone and required an international flight it said I should gift $-30!
i've never heard of that rule of thumb, but i've given gifts that i thought the couple would like and its what i could afford.... i def never had their wedding costs in mind at all.
I've never heard of this rule before... I don't think it applies in a strict sense, but I would say that at our wedding, which was very nice (if I say so myself) with a full meal and open bar one family of 5 that was invited gave us $25. When we opened the card, my husband and I noted that this family couldn't have gone to McDonalds' for dinner for that. Though money isn't really the point and we'd never have expected them to "cover the plate", people should think about what they'd spend on a night out.
I haven't attended a whole lot of weddings as an adult (we are one of the first of our friends to get engaged), but I look at what the couple is registering for and gift according to what I can afford.
A friend of mine, who had a very low budget for her wedding (under 10,000), was registering for very extravagant gifts on her registry. Had I followed the 'cover the plate' I wouldn't have been able to afford anything from her registry!
I would find it very odd if as a guest attending a wedding, I was supposed to think about how much the couple was spending on their wedding rather than how close I was with the couple and what I wanted to give them. I mean, would I spend more on a coworker's extravagant wedding rather than a close friend's backyard affair? I just find that logic of gift giving to be very petty.
Also, that calculator illustrates how absurd that rule is. If my best friend is getting married, why on earth would I give her less if she got married in December than if she got married in May? Is she any less married because she chose the off-season? Am I any less happy for her in the winter than in the spring? Ridiculous.
I agree @greenleaf, we attended a November weddng and did not "adjust" the gift because it was off-season. I do consider some of the other aspects of the calculator. For example, I couldn't go to a dear friend's wedding so I did give her a larger gift than I would have if I attended.
No I don't worry about covering my plate. I give based on the money I have available, how many other weddings I've been to recently, how far I had to travel and how close the friend is. It's not really my fault if someone decides to pay $50k for a wedding and I don't worry about covering the cost.
ETA - quiz says I should gift $85 for a wedding that FI and I were invited to in October. It's either a 400 mile drive one way or a flight, plus hotel. They are like acquaintences at best, so it's debatable if we will even attend. They probably won't be getting $85 worth. I give $85 for good friends. Sorry, my salary is peanuts.
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I know that most Bees are of the age when lots of people marry, so they attend other weddings.
In some parts of the country the unspoken rule is to cover the cost of your attendance (cover the plate) with the cost of your gift.
Of course, to me this raises plenty of issues like, how the heck are you supposed to know the cost, and does that mean you give a less expensive gift than you normally would for a less expensive wedding?
Which got me wondering, do you think of this "rule," try to follow it, or don't care? Curious, thanks Bees!