The world of weddings can often feel both vastly complicated and stuck in tradition. Because most of us only get married once, it’s not like we can really know what to expect.
And even if you’ve been to a dozen of your friend’s weddings, you can still become overwhelmed by the sheer scale of teamwork needed to pull it together.
One thing that can feel very complicated is the gift-giving portion of a wedding. Do you bring a present to a stag do?
Do you need a wedding gift for the engagement party and the wedding itself? And as the fiancés, do you need to give your guests gifts?
We will answer all of these questions and more, while also giving links to more details and gift ideas.
Before we get started, we want to say a big hello to the readers of photographybyverdi.com.
Photography is often a fantastic gift idea, whether that’s creating an album or paying for the specialist on the big day.
We have recently acquired photographybyverdi.com and are super excited to welcome you all into our community.
Contents
Before The Big Event
Before we even think about the wedding day itself, we need to consider the little parties beforehand. These little events are designed to help build up to the grand finale.
Although you want these events to be fun and exciting, they can easily become a source of anxiety if you don’t know what to expect.
We will explain what each of these parties is, if you need to bring a gift and what type of gift you might want to consider.
What To Give At An Engagement Party?
The first event in the lead-up to the wedding day is the engagement party. This party is where the couple announces to their friends their desire to get married.
To some people, this topic will be obvious due to the invitation. To others, the event will be a surprise as they announce their nuptials during the main course.
Traditionally, guests are not expected to give a gift during the engagement party. If the announcement is meant to be a surprise, then you wouldn’t know what the situation called for anyway.
However, it is becoming increasingly popular to shower friends and family with gifts on this occasion. Remember that gift-giving is an option and not a requirement.
If you would rather save your gift for their big day, that’s okay. Depending on your social circles, that’s what everyone else will be doing anyway.
However, if you’re someone who cannot say hello to someone without offering a little trinket, then we have some suggestions to help you narrow down your gift ideas.
LGBT+ Couples
You may have noticed that most wedding or engagement gifts lean into the “Mr and Mrs” tradition.
Pillows, glasses, jumpers, etc. They all say “Mr and Mrs”. This isn’t a bad thing of course, as the newlyweds would want to bask in their new titles.
However, most companies that create these gifts don’t allow you to mix and match. This means finding a “Mr and Mr” version is near impossible.
Knowing this, we have been searching for LGBT+-friendly versions of these types of gifts.
This way you don’t need to search for hours to find something the couple might like. Instead, just peruse through these pages:
Older Couples
If the couple getting married is old enough to have everything they need already, it can be difficult to give them something that won’t end up being cluttered.
To help you figure out what to give, you need to answer a couple of questions.
First, you need to know about what they are interested in as a couple. Do they enjoy traveling together?
Perhaps they are always hanging out at a certain restaurant or bar. Maybe you always see posts of them building something out of thrift store goods?
Whatever the couple is interested in, this needs to be your focus point.
It can be easy to focus on one person in the couple, however, if you do that you end up buying a gift that isn’t about their engagement. You should save that idea for a birthday, instead.
The second mistake you might make is buying something they already have. If they are knee-deep into a hobby, you can expect them to already have the main items in the craft.
Instead, you should buy a novelty item that ties their interests together with the engagement.
For example, if they love to travel, get them matching couple luggage tags. If they enjoy food and often cook for their guests, buy them an engraved chopping board.
Bring their main interests together with their upcoming marriage.
The Difference Between A Wedding Gift And An Engagement Gift
You might think the above ideas would be perfect for a wedding gift, and you aren’t wrong.
However, the difference between wedding and engagement gifts comes down to the thought, price, and the extravagance of the items.
If you are planning on giving an engagement gift, then know that whatever you give as a wedding gift needs to be grander.
Only give something small at this stage, so you don’t underwhelm the couple on their big day.
Some people prefer to offer an activity as an engagement gift and an item as a wedding gift.
This way the couple gets to unwrap something on the come down from their wedding, but still get to look forward to something new as a married couple in the future.
What To Give At A Stag Do, Hen Do, I Do Crew Party?
Once the couple is married, the next few months or even years will be dedicated to their love, so they may not see their friends for a while. This is why stag dos, hen do, and “I Do” crews were invented.
In a stag do, the groom or grooms go off on a wild adventure with their friends. In a hen do the same happens but with the bride or brides.
The “I Do” crew follows the same ideas again, however they don’t necessarily conform to separating brides and grooms or nonbinary people.
Because these events are meant to be fun and free, you’re not expected to give a gift.
Instead, the bridesmaids, groomsmen, or buddies of honor pay for the fiancé’s experiences during the event. This means buying their dinner, tickets to any events or hotel stays.
Weddings are expensive, so paying for these trips is a great way to genuinely help the couple enjoy their time without worrying about money.
What To Give At A Bridal Shower?
Bridal showers are different from hen dos. Instead of going wild and exploring an adventure, the party explores a more sophisticated interaction.
This could mean having a spa day, enjoying high tea, or staying at home and relaxing with a set dinner surrounded by friends.
Although there isn’t a well-known term for the groom or nonbinary version of this event, that doesn’t mean that only brides can have a shower.
Let’s make up a term now – a Groom’s Shower and a Pre-Spouse Shower? That needs some work. What are your thoughts?
Because these events are more formal you can easily give a gift to the fiance without worrying about it being left behind.
Unlike engagement gifts, this offering can be unique to the single person of the couple. The best gifts would remind the fiancé of the times they spent with you without their loved one near.
Bracelets with old nicknames engraved on them, wine that relates to a story you both share, or a memento of your friendship.
To help you understand the level of appropriateness with gifting at a bridal shower, we have created a web page dedicated to explaining bridal shower gift etiquette.
It’s a quick read, so head over to that page before continuing on.
Bridal Shower Gifts As A Mother-In-Law
As you look through all of the amazing gifts to give at a bridal shower, you may have noticed a number of crude or inappropriate jokes among the options.
As a further mother-in-law, giving a gift like that can feel wrong on so many levels. Instead, you should search through more sophisticated items, and lean more toward love than rudeness.
We have found 8 bridal shower gifts that fit this description, so you can browse in peace knowing that crude jokes won’t pop out at you at any moment.
Last Minute Ideas
If you want to give the bride a gift, but ran out of time before you could purchase one, we have 35 ideas to help you pick up something quickly.
In the link above you will either find redirections to sellers with quick turnaround times, or ideas that you can easily find in a mall made personal through our suggestions.
Time is running out, so click on the link above and get scrolling!
What To Give On A “No Gift” Shower?
A “No Gift” shower is when the fiancé has especially said that they don’t want any gifts at their event. A good guest would respect this decision and not give anything to the host.
However many people feel the need to give a gift whenever they arrive at a friend’s house. A bowl of chips, some nice flowers, or anything that means they haven’t shown up empty-handed.
This is a common cultural idea, which means showing up without a gift often feels rude by itself.
If you’re someone who feels this way, we have a couple of suggestions to give a gift without cluttering your friend’s home.
A great first option is showing up with wine. The wine could be drunk by the party that day, or used any time between then and the wedding.
Our second suggestion is to make a card. This card can be detailed and whimsical but also thrown away after the event. To see how to make a gift like this, click on the links above.
Gifts To Give Your Guests
Of course, the guests aren’t the only ones who can give gifts at a bridal shower – the bride can too.
When you give gifts to your guests, you want them to be universal among the group. This means giving everyone the same thing or giving everyone a different variation of the same thing.
This allows you all to feel like a community in this moment of shared love for your upcoming wedding day.
Look through all 50 of our suggestions here and see which gifts best fit your theme.
Gifts To Give To Game Winners
If you are hosting the event, you will need to gather a number of good gifts to hand out as winning prizes. Finding the right type of gift for these occasions can be difficult which is why we have created an article dedicated to the subject.
We have found 25 awesome bridal shower prize ideas to help you balance fun and engagement with an already tight wallet.
For example, each time you win a game, you might get a bar of soap with the couple’s name carved into it.
This allows the level of competition to die down as everyone hopes to get one of the prizes each.
Gifts For Virtual Bridal Showers
If you are the bride giving gifts to your friends or a guest trying to shower the bride, attending virtually can be a massive issue.
You aren’t there to see if the receiver enjoyed their present, and cannot gauge how everyone is feeling.
As the host, the best idea is to give everyone their gifts in advance, so they can wear them or drink from them on the day in question. Look through these ideas to help you on your way.
If you’re a guest giving to the bride, then you have a lot more freedom in your options. Ideally, your gift should be easy to see through the camera, so everyone can comment on the present you have brought the bride.
For some virtual bridal shower gift ideas, click on the link.
If you live in a different country than the bride, you may have trouble sending your packet through customs.
This is especially true if you’ve sent a gift basket.
Gift baskets are a lovely idea as they either give the bride one less thing to worry about as you send her a food shop, or allow her to eat like a queen in the lead-up to her wedding – adding a level of excitement to her food every day until the main event.
We have found 12 wedding gift baskets that ship overseas, so you don’t have to waste time finding the perfect collection only to be turned away at the checkout.
What To Give If You’re The…
Your connection to the newlyweds can change the type of gift you want to give them.
At this point in our guide, we are past all of the little parties that lead up to the main event and are seconds away from the wedding itself.
If you’re a sibling, parent, friend, or family member, the type of gift you want to give will change depending on which group you fall into.
To help you avoid an awkward situation, we have a couple of suggestions to help you buy the perfect gift!
What To Give If Your Brother Is Getting Married?
If your brother is getting married you want to give him something that connects the two of you with his new partner.
Maybe the two of you have always been attuned to each other’s fashion sense, but his partner cares more for nature.
If that is the case then you could buy him a stylish and classy watch that matches his style, but the straps are made of wood.
This gift shows your brother that he can still talk to you about all things fashion, but that doesn’t mean his new spouse cannot join in too.
What To Give If Your Sister Is Getting Married?
The same can be said if your sister is getting married, but to change things up a bit, we want to add a little twist. Instead of connecting to something you both enjoy now, give her something that mattered to her as a child.
Perhaps she was always watching Disney and was in love with the romanceable characters.
Maybe refer to how she has found her royal match, and include a picture of her swooning over that character alongside her swooning over her new life partner.
You could then place it in a keepsake box to encourage them to take photos of themselves on their new path in life.
What To Give If You’re The Prankster Friend?
If you’re a prankster, then your need for a good laugh won’t stop simply because there is a wedding going on.
Your friends will love to have some light-hearted fun during one of the most magical yet stressful moments of their lives.
Go through our list of 7 hilarious gag wedding gift ideas to see which one will create the biggest laugh from the couple!
If you’re worried that one of the pair won’t find your prankster gift funny, then instead of scaring them on their first day of marriage, give them a silly survival kit gift basket instead!
These could include inside jokes or classic items like lip balm and razors.
What To Give If Your Child Is Getting Married?
It’s a special day when your child gets married, and you want nothing more than to make sure they have the best day ever.
Arguably the greatest thing you can do for your child is to give them money to help make that day less stressful.
The hardest part of getting married is dealing with the hidden fees that come out of nowhere.
Many places only tell you the final costs once everything has been completed, which means budgeting is nearly impossible.
If you take some of the financial burdens off their shoulders you will stop the stressful panic from settling in.
But what can you give if your daughter eloped? You can’t wipe away their financial worries if your child got married on a whim.
Instead, you need to give her something that reminds her that she is still a child at heart.
You could give her an adventure book that starts on their day of eloping and keeps on being filled as the days go on.
Or you could craft a pop-up card filled with the couple’s romantic story, mixing the current day with gimmicks of the past.
What To Give If You’re The Crafter Of The Family?
You don’t have to buy the newlyweds a gift if that doesn’t match your ethos. Instead, you could DIY them a present, to create a more personal touch.
You could create a mug for them, with quotes or images that match their aesthetic in a way that a bought present never could. Or you could find beautiful rocks in the places that meant the most to the couple, and turn them into resin coasters.
If you prefer a zero-waste approach, you could paint or hire a painter to capture the couple’s image.
We have tons of ideas for you to consider, so click through the links above to help get those creative juices going.
Summary
Use this page like a directory every time you go to a wedding. Simply scroll down until you find the right subheading for your situation.
Generally speaking the best gift for any occasion is one that is both personal to you and your friend, while also connecting to their new spouse. Once you figure out what that might be, the rest is simple.
