Just Venmo Me...

[mjkacmom]

I Venmo my own adult children on their birthdays if I'm not going to see them. I always use it for nieces, nephews, and used it for my mom on Mother's Day. I have no problem with Venmo. This is just the first time that I ever saw it on an announcement.

And this is the first time I’ve heard of it too! Graduation announcements aren’t a thing here and I’ve only received them from family members who live elsewhere.

 

[mjkacmom]

I've had to "kind of" come to terms that this is just the way that the world is these days. Now, my niece is about to graduate from H.S. this June and my sister would never in a zillion years send out a notice with a venmo code on it for convenient gift giving. She's having a party, and people will bring cards with cash and checks in them....old school style. My sister and I are gen-xers and this kind of stuff drives us insane, but we're all seeing more and more of it. From graduation parties to weddings, people are just opening asking for cash. I know, I know....the convenience of clicking on a link to help pay for Jack and Jill's wedding is soooo easy, but it always feels a little tacky to me.

We just returned from a trip to Hawaii to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We'd planned on Kauai and the Big Island, but had to bail on Kauai last minute because the weather looked bad for our entire stay....so, we switched to Oahu for 5 nights for the first part, one at the Halekulani on Waikiki beach and four at the Four Seasons Ko Olina (right next to Aulani). For one entire day at the adult pool we watched as staff set up for a lavish wedding for about 75 people on the lawn by this pool...with a beautiful view of the ocean. This was not going to be a cheap affair. By late afternoon (and a couple of adult beverages in), guests began to speculate on the bill....lol.

The couple's names were on several signs in different areas, "Let's pop some bottles to celebrate Sophie and Paul!!" In today's world it took me about 15 seconds to find the couple on-line...just typed in their names and the hotel name....and viola, I found their wedding site on The Knot. They were both doctors, who met at a prestigious east coast medical school. And the only item they had on their registry was...."Wedding Cash Fund."

The next day at the same pool, we saw many of the wedding guests enjoying themselves with the bride and groom. We were under a shaded area and a couple about our age (mid-50s) who attended the wedding wandered over to a couple of empty loungers looking for shade (away from the where the wedding crowd was seated). At one point my husband heard the woman say something like, "I'm glad they're enjoying themselves....we're all paying for it." We got a good chuckle out of that. The reality is....we've *always* paid for part of any wedding/honeymoon we attended when we gave a cash gift. It's just that couples never came out and openly *asked* for it. That's the part that takes getting used to I guess....but I give....because it's just the way the world is heading.

My parents paid for our wedding, we got to keep the cash (my dad deposited it all into our account when we were on our honeymoon).