Wedding Gift Ideas

A good wedding gift is something the couple will still be using years from now. The registry is your safest guide, and the items here cover the kitchen, the bar, and the home if you go off it.

Buy from the registry unless you have a reason not to

The registry is a list of what the couple needs, sized to their actual kitchen, matched to what they already own, and coordinated so that nobody ends up with three slow cookers.

Going off-registry is a small gamble that you know their home better than they do. Sometimes you do, particularly if you are close family or you have something with genuine history behind it. Most of the time you do not, and the off-registry gift becomes the thing they keep in a closet out of politeness.

If everything in your range is already taken, buy a smaller registry item and add something personal alongside it, or contribute to a group gift on one of the larger pieces.

What to spend

The old rule about covering the cost of your plate should be retired. It was never etiquette, it makes the couple’s catering budget your problem, and it produces the strange outcome where an expensive venue obliges guests to give more.

Give what fits your budget and your closeness to the couple. As a rough guide, fifty to a hundred dollars suits a colleague or a more distant friend, a hundred to a hundred and fifty suits a good friend, and family or a member of the wedding party often gives more. These are ranges, not requirements, and nobody worth attending a wedding for is auditing the number.

If you are attending as a couple, one gift from the two of you is standard. If you are flying across the country to be there, the travel is part of your contribution and a smaller gift is perfectly reasonable.

Cash, and when it is the better answer

Cash has shed most of its old stigma and in many families and cultures it has always been the norm. For couples who already live together and own a full set of kitchenware, money toward a down payment or a honeymoon is frequently the most useful thing you can give.

Follow the couple’s lead. If they have set up a honeymoon fund or a cash registry, use it without feeling that you have taken a shortcut. If they have built a traditional registry instead, they would probably rather have the items on it.

Timing

Sending before the wedding is easiest for everyone. The gift arrives at their home rather than needing to be transported from the venue, and it spares the couple hauling boxes at the end of a long night.

The frequently repeated notion that you have a year to send a gift is a myth. Within three months of the wedding is the real window, and earlier is kinder, since the couple cannot write thank-you notes until the gifts arrive and a late one leaves that task hanging over them.

Avoid bringing anything large or breakable to the reception itself. A card is the only thing that belongs at the venue.

The card

Write more than your names. A wedding generates a large stack of cards that say “congratulations” and nothing else, and the couple reads all of them hoping for something.

Say something you actually think about the two of them together, or recall the moment you knew they were serious about each other. One specific sentence beats a paragraph of good wishes.

For the couple on the receiving end, working through a hundred thank-you notes is its own project. Our wedding gift thank-you page has wording sorted by tone and covers the awkward cases, including cash gifts and the guest whose gift you cannot identify, and the wedding party page handles thanking the people who stood up with you.