I Was Invited To A Wedding But I Hardly Knew The Couple. I Gave Little Wedding Money

I was invited to my old schoolmate’s wedding. I hadn’t seen her for 20 years so I wondered why I was invited. 

But I thought why not since I haven’t seen her in a long time and it would be good to meet up with old schoolmates. 

But the dilemma came when I was torn on how much wedding money I should gift. Because I hadn’t spoken to her for so long, it felt like preparing an expensive gift for a stranger. 

The industry norm is to check out the expected gifts people usually give during weddings. For hotel ballrooms, usually, the wedding gift is larger. 

She had booked a large hotel ballroom and of course, it would cost more per attendee.

Up till the day before the wedding, I was still undecided on how much wedding money to give. I decided to under-provide and go with an amount that I was comfortable with. But I was also embarrassed as we usually put our names behind the gift envelopes as records and leave well wishes for the bride and groom. 

I decided not to leave my name there because I under-provided. But I still provided a gift because I also wanted to congratulate the happy couple. 

A wedding dinner is an expensive affair. Sometimes when a wedding invite comes in, and if you had not budgeted it into your expenses for the month, you end up tapping on your savings for it. 

I believe that guests should also be comfortable with the amount they wish to prepare. If you are a bride or groom and you wish to invite guests who are not close to you, you might have to “lose money” as it is unlikely the guest will offer industry norm rates unless they have quite some cash on hand.

This article is part of TSS Confessions, a weekly column where we delve into personal finance topics that are unscripted and genuine real accounts from people.