How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

marc_rai Posted: Sep 14, 2004 06:32 PM

How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Okay, I don't mean to sound callous or greedy, but I just want to have a better idea for planning. Approximately, how much $$ did people get as gifts. If you can include your number of guests that would be great. The reason that I am asking this is because we are thinking about charging some of the vendors on a credit card, but after reading a couple of posts it seems as if people were severly disappointed with how much they expected to receive. We're also hoping to have some $$ left for a down payment.

Honestly, I would be happy with whatever we get, but I just want to have a realistic idea of what to expect.

I hope no one takes this the wrong way.

Thanks.

mrswask Posted: Sep 14, 2004 06:45 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

There is really no way of knowing. Nobody knows if you are going to get stiffed, if checks are going to bounce, if people are going to cheap or generous.
I will say that we did quite well - some were 'cheap' but more were very generous. I will say that my best friend's wedding - which was a 'fancier' wedding - she had 75 more people than us and we made more money. We had 150 people.

myasmom Posted: Sep 14, 2004 07:35 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Honestly Mrs. Wask is right..some people still give gifts off the registry..one friends had a great wedding and 94% gave registry gifts.

wc0143 Posted: Sep 14, 2004 08:25 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

I did not EXPECT ANYTHING as gifts!!!

We planned our wedding based on the money we saved for the exact purpose.

kpny622 Posted: Sep 14, 2004 09:21 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

maybe you want to do a poll...so people can post anonymously?

palebride Posted: Sep 14, 2004 09:54 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Posted by wc0143

I did not EXPECT ANYTHING as gifts!!!

We planned our wedding based on the money we saved for the exact purpose.

same here

PrincessRose Posted: Sep 14, 2004 11:12 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

I agree, I didn't plan on anything. We got a lot more than I ever could've dreamed though.

That said, I am not from LI, so I was surprised about this whole cash giving thing in the first place - which could mean that I have lower expectations than other women here.

I was mainly disappointed in the amount of things left on my registry, truth be told. I only got half my good china and half my good flatware.

steph4777 Posted: Sep 15, 2004 12:06 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Do NOT make plans for money to don't have. That's a big mistake.

If you have certain expectations, you might just be disappointed if you don't meet them. Look at the cost of the wedding as forgone and whatever you receive in gifts as a nice surprise. Also even if I said how much we got in gifts, it isn't a really good indicator of how much you will get.

june262004 Posted: Sep 15, 2004 12:30 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

We GOT A Lot less then we thought we would. I didn't book vendors without knowing they could be paid for.

swags1016 Posted: Sep 15, 2004 05:08 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

I agree with the girls, you could be setting yourself up for disaster. If you 'HAVE' to charge it be prepared to pay it off over time, that is assumming you have vendors that will let you charge their services, a lot don't!

As for the gifts, Michal is right, it is hard to predict. We had a lot of older people at our wedding and that does effect the amount a lot of times that they give.

I would say we made back a quarter of what we spent.

dandj Posted: Sep 15, 2004 07:05 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

I would say that we broke about even... we had a lot of people at the wedding (220)... honestly, some people gave way more than we expected and were very generous so they more than covered their plates and some gave significantly less...but it all evened out in the end.

We put things on credit cards.... best bet is to get one with 0% interest for six months and then paid them off with the money we got for the wedding. We still have some left over to put in the bank.

suven Posted: Sep 15, 2004 08:19 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

my advice would be to NOT put anything on credit cards. Even if you do receive A LOT of cash gifts, you're probably not going to want to put it toward wedding expenes AFTER the wedding.

A lot of the things that I thought were important before the wedding, are no longer important to me now. Luckily, I didn't have any contracts requiring me to pay for anything afterwards- expect for the final video and photo payments.

But, I had always planned on getting certain things after the wedding and now I would rather save the money.

The best thing would be to expect to receive nothing. You can never estimate gift money. Some people may give you $50 (from 2 people) and someone else may give you $500.

itsbouttime Posted: Sep 15, 2004 09:08 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Posted by wc0143

I did not EXPECT ANYTHING as gifts!!!

We planned our wedding based on the money we saved for the exact purpose.

ditto! we paid for the wedding in full prior to the 'big day', we had no bills to come home to so it didn't matter to us what was in the cards.

eroxgirl Posted: Sep 15, 2004 09:35 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

I don't think its a good idea to pay for some vendors by credit card and still expect to have money left over for a down payment on a house.

We paid all our vendors cash and even though we are about to put a down payment on a co-op, not one cent of that money has come from our wedding gifts. We paid off some pre-existing debt and used the cash we received as spending money for our honeymoon...with what we have left we *might* be able to cover closing costs, but that's about it.

Before the wedding, we tried to estimate what we would receive. We calculated $100 per guest as an average gift, (because that's what we give) and then subtracted the amount of people that I knew would give an actual gift as opposed to money, because most of my family lives outside NYC where giving cash is considered *tacky* (direct quote from my Uncle, don't shoot the messenger). If it wasn't for one very unexpected stiffer, our estimate would have been dead on.

marc_rai Posted: Sep 15, 2004 09:38 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Thanks everyone. We're really trying to work within the budget that we set for us, but alot of my friends that got married keeps telling us 'don't worry, you'll get it back'. I think we will heed everyone's advice and EXPECT NOTHING.

Sonicstef Posted: Sep 15, 2004 09:44 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

We planned our wedding based on the money we saved for the exact purpose.

Exactly!

Plan on getting nothing and then every gift will be a nice surprise.

xjulietx Posted: Sep 15, 2004 10:00 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

We didn't bank on using wedding money to pay vendors (though we did expect to cover our closing costs and still have a cushion, which it did)

We estimated our wedding gifts based on what my brother and SIL had received 1 1/2 years ago for their wedding from my relatives (figuring they would give the same) and what DH had given to relatives for recent weddings (expecting to get that much back)

We were pretty much on with the exception of a few people who were below the mark and a few who were waaaaaaaaayyy above.

Even so, we didn't plan to use wedding money to pay vendors.

Donna Posted: Sep 15, 2004 10:12 AM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

Please don't wait for the wedding money to pay your vendors - it is very uncommon for couples to receive in gifts all of the money spent on a wedding.
Your guests may 'cover' their plates at your wedding but they are not covering the cost of the flowers, music, limos, etc. If you're fortunate you may recoup the reception costs.

Karacg Posted: Sep 15, 2004 04:44 PM

Re: How much $$ did you get as gifts? Please read post before forming your opinion.

I got $120 check from my brother who came with his wife and nephew. My per plate was at least $125.
Rest of my brothers & sisters gave gifts NOT from registry (no way to take baclk) that I neither needed nor wanted.

DO NOT EXPECT TO MAKE BACK $$.

We spent almost 30K and got about.......3K. Thanks to hubby's generous family, not mine!!