I did something like this for my wedding. Aside: it was to a global health charity that let us show a tangible impact, not a charity that was rated for effectiveness. I didn’t know as much about EA at the time.
People did give generously. I suspect they might have given less than they would have spent on gifts, but I can’t be sure, as we didn’t have a traditional wedding either. I also do suspect that “many guests will likely give less to a charity than they would to [you] personally” but I’m not sure why that is. On one hand it seems strange to me; do you have any theories?
I didn’t get any negative responses to my face, and some positive ones, although I got some vague impressions from family that some people might have been like “this is weird and pretentious” (but I’m not sure).
One reason to do this rather than asking for cash and donating it: it ties your own hands, if that’s an issue. It can be hard to commit yourself to donating/hard to actually write those checks to the charity. (But that’s not an issue for everyone).
I did something like this for my wedding. Aside: it was to a global health charity that let us show a tangible impact, not a charity that was rated for effectiveness. I didn’t know as much about EA at the time.
People did give generously. I suspect they might have given less than they would have spent on gifts, but I can’t be sure, as we didn’t have a traditional wedding either. I also do suspect that “many guests will likely give less to a charity than they would to [you] personally” but I’m not sure why that is. On one hand it seems strange to me; do you have any theories?
I didn’t get any negative responses to my face, and some positive ones, although I got some vague impressions from family that some people might have been like “this is weird and pretentious” (but I’m not sure).
One reason to do this rather than asking for cash and donating it: it ties your own hands, if that’s an issue. It can be hard to commit yourself to donating/hard to actually write those checks to the charity. (But that’s not an issue for everyone).