20-40-60 Etiquette---What about donating to the honeymoon?

QUESTION: Recently I was invited to a wedding shower. On the invitation it was requested that I make a donation to a local travel agency [without naming the amount] to be used for the bride and grooms honeymoon.  I was reluctant but did send a check. I would just like to have your thoughts on this. I thought it was tacky to say the least. A weekend at a nice hotel would have been more appropriate under the circumstances. Reply please.

CALLIE’S ANSWER: It was just a suggestion. You can donate however much you want or not at all if you feel like this is inappropriate. They gave you the option of what you feel comfortable with.

LILLIE-BETH’S ANSWER:  I don’t like seeing donation requests printed on an actual invitation. It would have been better if the hosts had shared this information with guests who called and asked what to get the couple or left cash requests out of the shower all together. A small separate enclosure with gift information and registries also sits better with me.

Showers are not meant to be fundraisers in which you have to check your donation amount in a reply card, mailed in with your check. They’re supposed to be gatherings to celebrate an upcoming wedding with friends while helping the couple set up their homes.

However, sometimes wedding showers have specific themes — brides can have kitchen showers, holiday showers for Christmas and other holiday-themed gifts, bed and bath showers or any theme that makes sense for the hosts and the couple. People get more creative all the time, so if this was a honeymoon-specific shower, then perhaps requesting a donation was OK.

Your check was appropriate and thoughtful — it was a nice gift that you knew the couple wanted, and it was an amount that you felt comfortable giving because thankfully the couple didn’t request a certain amount, which would have given the shower even more of a fundraiser theme. You could have always brought another gift to the shower, which would have been fine, too. If you’re celebrating the couple’s upcoming wedding happily, then I’m not sure it’s worth the energy to debate whether the request was tacky or not: Take a moment to ponder that by yourself and then let it go. From what I can tell from your question, they didn’t demand money and the request for the donation came via the hosts and not directly from the couple.