Belle Taylor: How much cash should you gift at a wedding?
Navigating the dos and don'ts of modern etiquette can come with plenty of potential pitfalls.
Is it weird to answer the Instagram story of a casual acquaintance? Is it crass to use ChatGPT to compose a note for your colleague's leaving card? And exactly how much money do you gift at a wedding?
That last question is one I have been asked a few times lately. Mainly from people a little older than myself who, upon receiving a wedding invitation, are shocked to discover gift registries have gone the way of the dodo and instead couples now ask for cold, hard cash to start their married life together.
It's a sensible idea. These days around 83 per cent of Australian couples live together before marrying, that's up from 16 per cent in 1975. We all want to make sure our intended doesn't leave toothpaste on the sink or nail clippings in the bed before saying 'I do'.
Modern brides and grooms aren't hoping to score a new toaster and fine china at their nuptials. Instead they want to fund their honeymoon or recoup some of the astronomical cost of the wedding, which these days sits upwards of $30,000 (and that's a budget wedding).
The answer to the 'how much?' question, if you're wondering, is supposed to be the cost of your meal. If you're thinking, 'The last time I ate out I got a banh mi and a soft drink for $12.50' then . . . not that. I threw the question out to the floor in the office and was hit with a wave of dissenting opinions. 'Depends if it's a good friend or your least favourite cousin,' one person mused.
'Fifty dollars a head,' was another, although further investigation revealed this person hadn't been to a wedding since 2009. That might be why.
'One hundred dollars per person,' was another response, which everyone agreed seemed closer to the mark. Although bear in mind this was a group of tight-arse journalists — we count our teabags around here — so maybe revise that figure upwards a little.
But it seems just as most of us have started to get our heads around wishing wells in lieu of gift registries, a new trend has popped up. I'm not one to consult Debrett's every time I leave the house but this one has got me clutching my pearls just a little.
Couples have started putting bank details on their wedding invitations so people can just transfer them cash. Some even have QR codes so guests can scan and send money directly to their accounts.
In the words of Seymour Skinner: am I so out of touch? No. It's the children who are wrong.
Or maybe the children just know their mates. Because recently a clip went viral on TikTok of a bride bemoaning that after her wedding of 120 people she and her groom received only four gifts and 12 cards.
Maybe without explicitly spelling out what the expectations were, many guests simply turned up empty-handed.
Can we blame COVID? The pandemic years put a halt to big weddings as everyone got a little shy about getting up close and personal on a dance floor.
This new generation of couples getting hitched is navigating a wedding landscape where the old rules simply are not in the collective memory of their peers.
If you've never been to a wedding then how would you know that putting your bank details on the wedding invite is a bit crass? Or that you shouldn't turn up empty-handed.
If you are new to the world of weddings, or it's been a hot minute since you were invited to one, remember: the done thing is $100 a head. Stick to the dress code and when the DJ drops Toto's Africa, dancing is compulsory.
And if you still baulk at giving cash, the least you can do is rock up with a card that has a nice message inside — even if you do get ChatGPT to write it.
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