The Right Way to Give Cash As a Wedding Gift
Picture this: Your BFF’s wedding is right around the corner, and in lieu of a wedding registry, the happy couple is asking for good, old-fashioned cash. Sure, you have a wedding-guest budget in place, but after travel expenses, celebrity-approved outfits, and pre-ceremony cocktails, you’re still not sure what to shell out and when. Enter Jeff Beil and Spencer Bagley, co-founders of alternative registry site Tendr, which allows you to easily give and receive cash gifts. They shared six tips on how to give cash as a wedding gift in any situation. Grab a pen and a notepad, and scroll down to get the full wisdom on what to spend.
1. Use what you would budget for a registry gift as a guideline. “This is a great place to start since you can figure out the general range you feel comfortable giving,” says Beil. “Even when you want to give money, this allows you to find that sweet spot of how much.”
2. Check out what the average amount is where you live. “Sometimes knowing your neighbor’s answer isn’t cheating,” says Bagley. “Looking at the state-by-state guide can give you an idea of how much folks in your area are, on average, giving as a gift.”
3. Consider your level of closeness. “If you’re going to someone’s wedding, you have some kind of relationship. But that does not a BFF make,” explains Beil. “It’s perfectly reasonable to give less to people who you don’t know as well or don’t see very often and give more generously to those you’re especially close with.”
4. Take your travel budget into account. “When you travel for someone’s wedding, you’re already spending more than you would on a wedding in town. You can’t put a price on love, but you can take travel costs into consideration when deciding how much to give as a gift,” says Bagley.
5. Think about how many gifts you’ll be giving a couple. “With all the pre-wedding parties you may attend for any given wedding, you could end up giving multiple gifts to the same couple. If this is the case, determine how much you’d like to give in total to the couple, then divide that over the different events,” explains Beil.
6. Plan ahead if you have multiple weddings in a season. If you have more than one wedding to attend, “Take a half hour and go through how much you’d like to give ahead of time,” Bagley says. “By planning out your gifts, you’ll be able to make decisions with your heart and mind instead of scrambling at the last minute to figure out all the details.”
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(Photo via Getty)