ASK THE EXPERT: Should a Wedding Gift Cover the Cost of the Guest’s Plate?

Khomulo Anna

So very coincidentally, this topic came up for me a few weeks ago when someone was thinking out loud in front of me about how much cash to give for a wedding gift, and was mumbling about the cost per head of said wedding while trying to figure it out.

I advised against worrying about that, because a) that seemed like an antiquated way of thinking about it to me; b) there is no way you can estimate that, honestly—I mean, I know a thing or two about weddings and even having a lot of the details, I didn’t feel like I could accurately come up with any figure worth suggesting; c) that’s not what throwing a wedding/giving a wedding gift is all about, and d) even if you could figure out what the cost per head was, most people give one gift per two people (whether you’re a couple or have a date or whatever) so it’s not like it adds up, and anyway, in a lot of cases, covering even one plate would be a whoa wedding gift, in my opinion. So I suggested they just give what they wanted to/could give and be done with it.

And then oddly enough, I just discovered this exact topic here on HuffPo, with comments from a wedding expert who—though for slightly different reasons—also agrees that this is most definitely not the way a guest should go about figuring out their gift for the happy couple—and furthermore, that a happy couple shouldn’t expect gifts to be given in this way, either. (Do you remember this recent brush-up over a wedding gift that went totally viral? If you didn’t catch it then, you should definitely read about it now. It’s really somethin’.)

So, seeing that it is definitely still something that comes up, I just wanted y’all to know: Give what you want to give; what you can give. Do not worry about the price of your ticket to the Big Day.

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