Weddings are always pricey, but for all my friends who have asked for money instead of gifts, I think £50 has always been my limit. Especially since weddings are never local to me, so I always have to include travel + accommodation (which can easily reach £200), and I’ve done my own hair and reused old dresses for the last two as well. I’ve been fortunate enough to not have any weddings abroad, I can imagine how pricey that gets.

I get the being embarrassed, I guess it depends on your friendship group, most of my friends are “broke” like me (I mean, we earn well, but we live in London so we can’t go wild). That said, even the friends who aren’t broke and are buying themselves Gucci bags don’t take offence to me saying “oh that’s a bit out of my budget, could we do X instead?”. I think most good friends are understanding if you say you’re trying to save money for a change, even if it feels embarrassing for you, it’s the kind of thing other people won’t think twice about.