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Ooh, a very deep and interesting question -- I love it! Tailor-made for my long-winded answers! 
I'm 29, and have actually attended relatively few weddings. Most friends are older and/or already married, and I don't have many cousins either. Of the weddings I attended, I tried to "gift" as generously as I could, thinking that I/we should at least try to cover the cost of what our hosts had spent on feeding us at their lovely shindig. Now that I've had my own wedding, and 1) know how much it costs and 2) received some *very* generous gifts, I feel like I was way UNDERgifting. 
(Not cheap, mind you, it's just that the wedding experience was a real eye-opener.) I will probably gift more generously in the future now knowing the costs and particularly for those singles who attended my wedding and were so very generous to us.
On the other hand, I do not think that a person should raid their retirement fund or skip the rent in order to give a gift. We certainly appreciated each and every gift, big or small. (Probably b/c we didn't get any of those weird WTF gifts...subject for another thread, lol!)
My feelings about the cost to ATTEND others' weddings has not changed. For most of the weddings I've attended lately, they all involved travel and expenses of $1000+ b/c I live on a rock. No getting around it. We just try to incorporate these events into our larger vacation plans. That said, we have skipped a couple that we couldn't afford or didn't know the people well enough. And yes, I do feel that if you shell out a lot of $$ to get to the wedding, the couple should understand and consider that a *part* of your gift. But that's not an excuse to cheap out and get them swizzle sticks as a gift.
Finally, the gift giving...I think that multiple events are a bit much. I've never gone to an engagement party, but I don't know that I would give a gift. Probably just a lei to say, hey, congrats! But you can't really do that most places. A bottle of wine, maybe? Nothing huge. I think multiple showers hosted by different people is a bit much, and can be very burdensome if you feel obligated to attend them all. I feel very fortunate that my BMs hosted both a traditional shower and a bachelorette party/lingerie shower for me, but there were only a handful of overlap guests. B/c so many came from out of town, the BP/LS turned out to be more for them (it was closer to the wedding date), and the trad. shower for family.
I think people shouldn't feel obligated to give more than one gift, although it seems usual that people give a shower gift (many of mine were "from" the couple, not just the female guest who attended) PLUS a wedding gift. I think that's very nice, very generous, and something that I usually participate in doing as well. I like to be an optimist and think that the multiple-event weddings that are so common now are because we all have so many different circles of friends and family and there's a need to celebrate with them all separately, not b/c people are gift grubbing.
I missed out on my roommate of three years' wedding because I couldn't afford to fly to another state with a wedding looming over my head. I kinda regret it, but at the same time, I think she understood.
As we were creating the guest list, my mom mentioned that a lot of newlyweds often skip out on weddings because of the cost and trouble. I hope this wouldn't be me.
I think that I will be much more generous with my wedding gifts now that I have planned my own wedding.
Then again, I'm in a better financial position now than I was years back too (though I may not be after this wedding!).
princesskittyHI -- your long-winded answers are the perfect complement to my long-winded questions
I think you just give what you can afford to give. I know my friend spent a lot on her wedding per guest, but at the same time, I hardly had money to buy dinner so I only gave $125. Planning a wedding myself, I realize all the money that goes into it, and I don't think I would give more now that I am planning a wedding. As I did in the past, I'd give what I can afford to give. If I make more, then I'd give more.
i think it's the other way around for me. a lot of my decisions for planning my wedding are influenced by my experiences attending weddings. i went to 4 this summer, plus another 2 within the past 2 years, and i was invited to 2 more. this has given me a lot of experience with the expenses of being a guest and bridesmaid. i do gift as generously as my means allow (which is more now that i'm working and not a grad student), but the gift is usually less than a third of the cost of attending the wedding. so, as a bride, i'm trying to keep that in mind especially since i'm dragging people to my hometown in upstate new york.
i'm with joy. i went to 4 weddings this year and ended up buying a plane ticket and paying for a hotel room for each. i'm a student and i wasn't getting a paycheck this summer, so my gifts were pretty minimal. i guess you can call that cheap if you want, but it was such an ordeal for me to even be there that i tried to make my "gift" more of my presence (and my help) than something material.
now that i'm thinking of who to invite where, my experiences are having a big impact on how i'm going to try to minimize costs for my guests and attendants. a lot of people will have to travel to the site, so i'm going to do what i can to provide free activities and make up costs where i can. part of me says "well, it's your wedding and they don't have to come if they don't want to/can't afford it." the other part of me says, "what's the point in having a big formal wedding if the people you love can't be there?"
tricky business.
Being a bride has not changed my opinon on weddings, cost of weddings, or destination weddings. I had a destination wedding and quite frankly, getting married on the beach with just a few people was enough for us, so we were blessed when most of our guests accepted! We were prepared for guests to complain and not come at all, and fortunately, that never happened. We made sure to always offer our help to our guests for any travel suggestions. And tried to find hotel blocks that were affordable. We also found high end hotel blocks for those who like to travel in style.
If you show your guests that you're willing to help the process of traveling easier for them, they'll appreciate that. If it's the pure cost issue, there's nothing you can do unless you pay for their trip.
As a bride, as much as I love my family and friends, if it was just me and my husband on the beach getting married, that was good enough for me. Having people celebrate with us was just gravy.
I think it has made me more generous in giving to other couples. Going into this, I seriously thought that we could have a wedding of 200 guests for about $8,000 with open bar. I really had NO concept of how much things really cost. I think I used to give people $50 but now I will give at the very least $100.
We still tried to keep things cheap, but our wedding still came in close to $20,000 and I'm sure a lot of weddings that I've been to cost more than that. So, now that I know a bit more about it I think I would give more money than I used to... as long as I could afford it.
oh and I agree with amysue that if you are travelling and paying for a hotel and the bride/groom know that you're not loaded, then you shouldn't feel obligated to give a big gift.
I will say that a few of our wedding guests didn't give us a gift or even a card. I mean how hard is it to get a card and write a nice note? It's really the thought that counts and if they just acknowledged that they were happy for us I would've been satisfied.
I can't say that I've really attended many weddings since both me and my fiance are the first in our groups of friends to get married, however I am trying to be as concious of cost to my guests as possible. We decided to have our wedding in the town we call home, which does mean that everyone will be from OOT. The closest guest will be an hours drive away, the furthest will be flying in from Australia.
I have the benefit of working at a hotel so I have grabbed a block of hotel rooms for my guests that are condo style so they can cook in their own kitchens to save on costs of eating out and they're at a serious price reduction.
We're currently toying with the idea of having a luncheon reception instead of a dinner/dance for two reasons 1) our costs and 2) those guests that only live an hour or so away can come and go home without having to drive home late, or get a hotel room.
I do think that all of the gift-giving has gone too far, and as such we're also putting on our invitation something along the lines of "your prescence is your gift!" We've been living together for 2 years (3 by the time we get married) and don't really need more stuff. I'll still have a small registry because my FMIL insists on it, and I'll have a charity registry as well but otherwise we don't expect gifts.
I always thought that a nice thoughtful gift between $100 and $150 form my fiance and I was A-OK... Now that I am the planning bride, I'm pretty sure that from here on out we will give a gift of $200 or more. I had NO IDEA that weddings were so expensive and no idea about the stress that goes along with planning...
The amount that I give is based on so many factors: relationship with B/G/couple, current life situation, and many more things. I can honestly say that I don't think I will give more now that I have been a bride! Or, more accurately, I may give more since I am now older and in a better place financially, but not just for the sake of having been through a wedding.
Yes, weddings are expensive, but I don't think it's up to guests to reimburse the couple for the wedding. Plus, who says that the couple are the ones paying for it? To me, this kind of gets into the slippery slope of trying to cover your plate.
One thing that has changed? I will never stray from the registry again. Oh, and I will be quick-like-a-bunny in sending back those RSVPs.
Radish, you are amazing - you said exactly what I was thinking in three short paragraphs, and I took a bazillion, and it still didn't come out quite right. My experiences/feelings are very similar to yours.
Except your last paragraph - that is SO horrible. And incredibly tacky. I wouldn't care, either, if we got no gift, but to not even express their happiness for you or wish you well, that's just lame.
Chrissie makes a good point about the slippery slope and that the couple doesn't always pay. I guess what I really meant by "covering what it cost to feed us" is more along the lines of giving them something at least equivalent to what they've given us -- a nice meal and a wonderful evening. I've given everyone essentially the same amount regardless of whether it was a backyard wedding or a full-on hotel spread.
I do think the amount of money spent to attend weddings has gotten way out of control. I thought this before I became a bride. I am definitely more of a genuine gift giving person... homemade quilt, something killer from a consignment shop, or I'll figure out if there is something you really WANT from a registry and may not get. If I simply buy you some random object from a registry then that usually means I don't care about you too much and I'm just being polite.
Here are two stats I found from the July/August 2007 issue of Women's Health that I found interesting:
Average cost to attend a wedding: $500
Average cost to be a bridesmaid: $1,400
I don't think I've really changed my gift giving since planning our wedding. We try to give what we can. We are not asking our guests for gifts though we registered at a charity just in case. Mostly, it's my view of weddings has changed since becoming engaged. I am now much more interested in everyone's wedding details- friends, strangers, everyone.
Planning a wedding and receiving such generous gifts has made me want to 'pay it forward' as it were. And depending on how close we are to the couple, we'll probably be very generous within our income in the future (and how much it costs to travel to the wedding).
We just got married in July in Ohio and most people had to travel to come, although we did our best to make it as affordable as possible. Many of DH's friends are recent college graduates and have not a lot of money, so we were just excited that they came. However, like Mrs. Radish, we had a number of guests (Including the BM and GMs)give us no present, which drives me crazy! All I wanted was a card saying, "your wedding was beautiful. we wish you all the happiness in the world. thank you for making us part of your day."
Bottom line, having just received so many wonderful gifts ourselves, regardless of cost, I think giving a thoughtful gift or just a heartfelt card if that's what's in your budget, is what counts.
My mom commented once that for bridal shower gifts back when she was engaged (in the 70s), sometimes you would get literally one spoon for your place settings as a gift -- not a full set of 8 complete place settings!
Although I will be registering for gifts, because there really are things that we need as we start a new life together, I do think the world of retail has slowly trained us to believe that we should be spending massive amounts of money on wedding gifts. I want to be sure to remain grounded and appreciative of whatever people choose to give me, and I want to be conscious not to register for useless things just for the sake of registering for them. In the end, it will matter most that our friends and family shared our day with us, and the gifts will be bonuses.
bunnybride, what do you mean if there is something that they really WANT from the registry? I'm genuinely curious. Several of our guests did not give us gifts, and two said to me later, "Oh, we wanted to wait to see if there was anything you really wanted." Er, we wanted everything on our registry - that's why we put it on there in the first place!
(These people don't even know each other, so maybe this is a common thing of which I'm just not aware?)
This isn't entirely related - But...Now that I am a bride and have seen my friends be brides, I ALWAYS eat wedding cake - I never knew how much time, thoughtfullness and money went into them.
I think it's almost worked backwards for me in that being a guest at so many weddings/showers/engagement parties over the past few years has changed my feelings on being a bride.
I've been stuck in a couple of situations where I've been made to feel like an invitation was only extended to me to get more "loot" (seriously, I got invited to a bridal shower where I was expected to show up and just drop off a gift because the bride was not even attending). These past experiences have not only left a bad taste in my mouth but put a great deal of financial strain on me as I am still relatively young and do not have a great deal of extra cash at my disposal.
Therefore, I'm trying to do the responsible thing and limit the number of present or money related events associated with our big day. Bachelorette party where I get to hang out with my friends? Great! Expensive bar crawl requiring tonnes of drink money, a new outfit and a hotel room? No.
I love my friends and the greatest gift they are giving me is being there for an important event in my life. :-)
I've generally gifted ~$100 per person (i.e. $200 if i brought a date) because I was told several times that was how much dinner costs.
Now that I'm planning a wedding, I realize the whole shebang costs much more per guest, but I probably won't gift more in the future because as a bride, I realize that most of the wedding costs (decorations, flowers, venue, photog, music) are decided by me to make myself happy, so I don't expect anyone else to pay for my decisions.
On the flip side, does anyone gift couples who didn't have a wedding? I know a couple who had a civil ceremony, and this year have been using other parties (birthday, housewarming) to mention a registry in the invitations. I respect their hints for gifts because I am happy for them, but the monetary value I give is way less because I know they don't have to "offset" any wedding expense. I admit that without their nudging I wouldn't have given them anything, but it seems a bit tacky.
I would probably feel guilty about not giving them anything if they were to give me a wedding gift, but we're going to discourage our guests from gifting since it's a destination wedding.
All of the weddings I have attended have been in western/central NY or Ohio. (They tend to cost a bit less than say NYC/NJ where we live now). My (now) hubby and I are both grad students, and live 7 hours from where we & my friends are from. Last summer, we took vacation time, and drove 7 hours to the wedding. Our gift was a blanket I made for them and their new house that cost me $130 to make. I also spent $30 on a shower gift for the shower I was unable to attend.
This was before I was engaged and planning our wedding, and aware of the costs of a wedding. For hub's cousin's wedding this year in western NY we drove 9 hours to get to the wedding, were able to skip on the hotel because we stayed with a relative, but we spent $110 on their gift.
Spent a little less for my good friend's wedding this summer that was 5 hours away that we did need a hotel for, about $100. + $35 on a shower gift that I didn't attend the shower for.
This may sound cheap to some posters, but we based the gift amount on the cost of our wedding, which was about $45/pp for dinner, plus we got 2 additional hours of open bar for a grand total of about $54/pp.
I was pretty appalled to receive a gift of $40 from friends of my parents ( a married couple). That's right, 2 twenty dollar bills. Thanks for almost covering one of your dinners! We were a bit under-gifted by all the relatives from Ohio, who gave $60-75/couple... not quite covering their plates either. But maybe weddings cost less in Ohio.
I think an engagement party, shower, and wedding is excessive. We did not have an engagement party, and my shower was relatively small (about 20 people, close friends + aunts).
I was recently a bit appalled to receive a shower invite for my husband's cousin's fiancee, who I never met, who lives a 12 hour drive from us. Oh and they requested gift cards only. I don't care if it breaks ettiquette, I didn't send a gift. We'll send something for the wedding, which they are holding 3 days before Christmas, even though his cousin did not attend and did not send us a gift...
No, my gift-giving has not changed at all. A shower gift is usually $35-50 depending on my relationship with the bride. A wedding gift is $75-100 for solo attendance and $175-200 for a couple attending. The gift is either cash or something from the registry.
One of my team mates recently got married but I was not invited to the wedding, actually no one in the office was. I contributed $30 to a group gift. If they had eloped I may have upped the cost to $50.
I love the question!
My husband and I had a civil ceremony 14 years ago, that included our son and a witness. We mailed announcements and were very surprised to receive gifts. The ladies that I worked with even threw me a bridal shower. (I was shocked and overwhelmed)
Over the years, we have attended many weddings - I've seen people have large guest lists and tried to save money by having mom cook spaghetti in the back room. I've also attended weddings were the family spent $100,000 and 1/2 the tables were empty.
We tend to look over the registry and purchase based on availablity and how well we know the couple.
What this has taught us is that for our vow renewal ceremony - keep it small and don't skimp. Of course, we don't expect gifts but have been asked to register by family and friends.
We always purchase a wedding gift even if we don't attend the wedding. I'm the one who decides how much. I don't have a figure to give you - it depends on how well we know the couple.
Wow, this turned out to be really long... sorry!
This is something that has definitely come up for me over the course of our wedding planning (and wedding-having). Before this year, we had no idea about the costs and efforts of wedding planning, and we gave only about $75-$90 per gift, depending on our relationship to the couple, etc. It didn't matter whether we were able to attend the wedding or not.
After this whole process, we will be giving substantially more, but it has to do with a lot of things. Mostly, we were grad students last year, this year we are not. Our financial position is necessarily a part of our decision when gifting in any situation, and now that we earn more (only slightly more, since we are both only postdocs now - not a big payraise from grad school!), we can give more.
I had never heard of this policy of your gift paying for your place at the wedding until I read about it here on WB. Frankly, I think it is kind of nonsense, at least from our personal experience. We planned the wedding that we wanted. We invited people that we wanted to be there with us, and yes, we planned things in part to show those guests a good time. Per person, we ended up spending well over what might be considered 'reasonable' for a wedding gift. There was never the expectation that we would gain that back through gifts from our guests, or that anyone should pay their way to our wedding through their gift. Our choices were our own - we could have chosen to have a much cheaper event, or we could have had a super-luxurious crazy fancy event, I just don't see how it has any bearing on what guests should think about when they give.
Relatedly, people generally are shocked if someone does not attend a wedding and does not send a gift. For me now, post-wedding, I've vowed to attend as many weddings as I possibly can, because it was SO awesome that our friends and family made the effort to come to ours. Getting a "yes" reply on an RSVP was a million times more meaningful than receiving a registry gift. If I can't make it, I will send a substantial gift, probably larger than what I would give if I do attend, maybe to make up for my absence. But, I did not expect the same from those who didn't come - a few people didn't send gifts, and that was fine for us.
In all honesty, I have to admit that I got caught up in it all, and at one point I was disappointed when a group of 10 of my friends went in on a $200 gift. After a few "$20 per person?! Seriously?!?" outbursts, I realized that they were (and some still are) poor grad students. Yet, they came to our wedding, which required a not-inexpensive plane ticket, car rental and multi-night hotel stay. Most importantly, they were there to celebrate with us on the most important day of our lives (so far). How could I expect anything more? I quickly felt so incredibly selfish and greedy, that my the attitude of wanting nothing but good wishes and support returned, and from then on out it was truly genuine.
Gifts from guests are always wonderful and nice, but I think when we start to feel wronged by a gift that we feel is too small or not enough, it's time to step back and remember why we are really having a wedding, and why we invited the people we did. I'm glad I did!
I think it's terrible to expect someone to give a monetary gift to cover their cost of dinner. A wedding is not like a club you pay to get into. The bride and groom (parents, whoever) are hosting and the way I see it, as hosts, they are inviting and treating their guests.
If $20 is all a guest could afford, but they made the effort to share with us on our special day, I'd be thankful for that. Frankly if it came down to a good friend of mine having to choose between getting us a gift or covering the costs of getting to our wedding, I'd much rather they make it out to join us.
In th end it all comes down to being gracious about things. Brides shouldn't send out invites just to expect a gift, and guests should still show appreciation in being invited, but I don't think either of those things should be measured by how much a person spends on the gift or on the wedding.
I am still planning but I feel like I have always given appropriately according to income. As I have gotten older, I stick to cash or giftcard gifts, because that is what I prefer. I feel like I have always given as I would like to be given to. I think after the wedding, in combination with my graduating college and making more money, I will probaby try to give more. Oh. I don't know if that makes sense. I think the moral of my story is I HATE REGISTRIES and I"D RATHER HAVE GIFTCARDS OR MONEY. I know thats selfish. Oh well.
Being a bride has definitely changed my gift giving-ness. When I first attended a friend's wedding, I was still in college, and I gave $50 worth of gifts from the registry. After becoming engaged, we give $200 cash to the couple for each wedding we attend. I feel awful for it, but I'm hoping we get the same generosity when it's our turn to wed. <--I know I know...i hate hate hate feeling that way!
This is a little off topic, but I think the average amount given depends greatly on where you come from. I was born, raised and married in Iowa, where we tend to give a little less, because life just costs less.
ABL - I'm a little shocked that you were "appalled" that you *only* received $40 from a couple. $40 is better than a kick in the pants, isn't it? And I'm going to guess that no where on your invitation did you put something like "Dinner is costing us $75 a plate, so please gift accordingly." Because really, if the point is that the couple pays for their own meal, why don't we just start charging people to come to our weddings? That makes sense doesn't it.........
I was so touched that several of my college friends who recently graduated gave me gifts that probably cost them $30. They are broke... like dirt poor, but still gave me a gift. I know that they could have possibly emptied their bank account just to buy this for me. So it's worth way more than $30.
My point with the post is... as brides... we should be thankful for everything we recieve. Everyone's background is a little different.
Sorry... a little off topic... :)
This is all very interesting to me as we just received our initial costs from our reception venue - I wasn't totally shocked but it still took my breath away for a minute!! (And I must also say here that my parents are very very graciously paying for most if not all of our wedding - so it's not something I have to worry about perse, but it is definitely something I am thinking about.) Makes me wonder how much others are paying/have paid for their weddings. I think I won't steal this thread and I will go post another topic.
But to answer the original question - Yes I am definitely thinking differently now that I am a bride - and I am dreading the costs of attending 7 weddings in 2009 while planning my own January, 2010 wedding! And I've also never heard of "paying for you dinner" - that just seems bizarre to me!
Great Topic!
I have always given a gift off of the registry. If I am giving cash, it is usually 100.00. If I am unable to attend a wedding, we try to give a nicer gift. Now that I am planning my own wedding, I am just hoping that everyone is able to come. Not because I want them to give me money to cover the cost, because I want every seat that I am paying for filled! I don't expect for people to "cover the plate". Honestly, if that was the case, there are a lot of people in my family that would think that 40.00 covers the plate. They would have no clue how much a downtown, city wedding costs, as mine will be the first one. I just want them to show up and have a great time!! Honestly, I fill like by throwing a super nice, chic wedding downtown that I am giving a gift to some of my family members who haven't really been to a wedding like the one I am planning.
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After reading through the many different responses to the destination wedding post, I got to thinking about that magic word that seems to be the focus of most of the responses, and that causes so much conflict when it comes to weddings:
MONEY! (Boo! Hiss! Snarl!)
At my current age (27), a good number of my weekends have become consumed by weddings. I love a good wedding, and I appreciate all that goes into planning for one, but I often feel like the expenses to attend a wedding just keep becoming grander and grander, and I am having trouble keeping up.
Now that I am engaged and will soon be having a wedding of my own, it has given me the opportunity to look at the cost of things from a different perspective, but it has also validated some of the feelings I have always had. For example, I have always thought that expecting guests to give you gifts at an engagement party, shower, AND wedding is a bit much. If we have an engagement party, we have already decided that we will request no gifts. In the same regard, though, I feel as if we have become more generous with the amount we spend/give for a wedding gift, after becoming more educated about what it is costing the happy couple to have us there.
So my question(s) for the hive: has being a bride changed your feelings on the cost of attending other people's weddings? Have you become more generous in your gift-giving, or less generous? Why? And do you think all of the gift-giving that goes along with weddings is acceptable, or has it gotten out of control?