Asking for cash instead of physical gifts.

You can ask for cash since most of us couples live together before getting married. It is beneficial for you two to put it towards a new goal to start or funds to pay.

As for wording, Every Indian invite always says and nothing wrong with going simple NO BOXED GIFTS PLEASE.

Interesting the responses here. Times have really changed and more and more couples are living together before the wedding, accumulating their own household items on their own. I personally don’t see the problem with asking for cash in a cute way as it’s more useful for you, especially if you say it’s for your honeymoon or a down payment for a house or something. You shouldn’t be stuck with five gravy boats you don’t need just to avoid asking your weddings guests for money instead.


I live in China and am doing a wedding in Canada with a mix of Chinese and Western traditions. In China they give red envelopes filled with cash and it’s actually really frowned upon if you don’t give one, even if you don’t go to the wedding. So I’m going to explicitly request no physical gifts as we can’t lug them back to China after the wedding. Gift cards for things in Canada aren’t useful for us either as we don’t live there. I think on our wedding website we’ll have something explaining the tradition and a cute poem saying how it’ll go towards our honeymoon, then at the wedding we’ll have a table with a nice envelope box and Chinese red envelopes ready for guests to use.



I think most people will understand, these are your family and friends, your loved ones.

View quoted message Awesome good to hear! We are having everyone rsvp on our wedding website as well and will just leave the registry info off of it as well.

All of my fh and I family knows we've been living together and with a child together. So we didn't registry nor we asked for cash. We simply just asked for their presence.

View quoted message I like this idea. I hope you guys get your dream house.

View quoted message This is such a great idea, also fun!

I had everyone RSVP to a website and we didn't write anything about no physical gifts. We flew in for the wedding so didn't have much space for physical gifts.

We did get a couple of gifts the day of, but they were handmade and all super customized. I would say maybe 5 people gave gifts out of the 140 people coming to the wedding, so writing nothing would also be fine.

What about putting something on your website about giving to your favorite charity. Just to drive home the point that you really dont want a physical gift

View quoted message I really like this suggestion, we also have everything we need and are saving for finishing our basement. I’m going to use this poem thank you Candace

We put this message on our wedding website and a few people have commented on how cute the little poem is

You can add something like this (see link below) to your invitation suite and to your wedding website!

https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/520239174/wishing-well-card-template-black-and?ref=hp_rv

View quoted message Good idea! I’m sure you’ll get what you want that way ☺️

Thanks for the all the tips! I think we will just not do a registry and let people who ask know that we don't want any physical gifts.

I’ve seen invites and wedding websites that simply say the bride and groom request no boxed gifts

No registry usually sends the message. I don't know if I would personally include any wording about wanting cash.

There is no tasteful way to ask for cash, although it is becoming more common for people to give cash rather than gifts. My friend put "Your presence is enough of a present. If you do want to bless us more, we would appreciate cash to buy items for our home as we need them"

I would suggest no registry. If people ask, you can let them know what you want. Or, you can have your wedding party/family inform guests.

I would suggest maybe doing a travel fund registry.Some people will have issue with cash only requests which is silly when a couple has been together awhile.

Same situation. Fiance and I have lived together for multple years and dont need any more stuff. We just didnt do a registry and we sent out a little peom with our online invitations saying we dont expect any gifts, but if people feel the need the best thing is money to help our honeymoon travels as we will be backpacking for 2 months.

I dont remember the exact wording of the peom but it was cute and subtle enough i think. I found it on pinterest!

I just wouldn't do a registry. I've been to weddings before where they have a cute saying like you don't need to bring a gift but if you feel so inclined an envelop with something inside. I can't remember how it went but they really didn't need it as people expected to give cash anyways. And some people may be offended being asked right out for cash unfortunately. But your guests should know you two have lived together for a decent amount of time so they are more likely to give cash or directly ask you what you would like.