Money For Wedding Gift + Chinese Wedding Lai-See

It’s definitely becoming more popular to ask for money as a wedding gift rather than having a traditional gift list. Whether this is towards your honeymoon or new items for your home, gone are the days where couples would like their aunties and uncles to buy items they’re really not fond of. Of course, other popular choices are gift lists created by yourself at department stores; such as John Lewis, Selfridges and Debenhams. Coming from a Chinese family, it’s very normal to me that money in red envelopes are gifted to the bride and groom…

I’ve grown up knowing that this is acceptable and the most welcomed way to gift newlyweds {as well as new borns, during birthday celebrations and Chinese new year}

I wanted to share this post in particular with couples who would like to ask guests to use the traditional Lai-See {Chinese red envelopes} for their wedding gift instead of a traditional gift list – in a pleasant way! In Hong Kong and China, it’s common guests will know that a Lai-See is the most popular way to gift however, it may seem a slightly cheeky request if you’re not familiar with the traditions or even more to the point, if your guests have never heard of it.

When I got married, Paul and I had 50% family and friends who would have only given us a Lai-See and 50% of family and friends who have never even seen or touched one! So to ease any confusion and the feeling of cheekiness when asking for cash on our part, we posted out the invitations with a new empty lai-see, then included a web address for them to visit. As the site was totally customised to us, I created a Gift page along with details about our wedding day. This included pages such as the venue, timings of the day and who the wedding party are – also what each and every one of them mean to us. On our gift page, I added my very own gift poem. I may have at the time taken some inspiration from other poems out there… but this was the result! I hope this may help you and once you change the words to suit yourself, it really is a nice added touch to your day.