One of my best friends is getting married, and I’m in her wedding. I’m also helping her sister oranize her a bridal shower. The bridesmaids are paying for the shower between the 4 of us. Of course, we also have the dress, shoes, hair and make up, etc. Shower gift, wedding gift, you know the drill.
This runs into a lot of money, and frankly, I’m not rolling it it right now (massive surgery for my dog pretty much cleaned me out). I love my friend and her fiance, though, and want to get them a nice gift for each of these giftable occasions. My question is, what do people spend for shower gifts and wedding presents these days? Yeah, I’m 34, but this is only the second wedding I’ve been in, and the last one was my brother’s, which is different.
I’m not sure what the standard is for these things. Most of my friends are not married, honestly, so I don’t know that much about this kind of thing. There was no engagement party. The shower is informal and going to be small, >20. It’s a Sunday afternoon wedding, semi-formal, if that matters, and pretty small, >70 guests, in a hotel, and I think it’ll be pretty conservative-- not a Sopranos style wedding by any means.
Also, if anyone has any hot tips about throwing a shower for someone, lemme know. I’ve definitely never done that before.
Well, I usually go for about the $50 ball park for a wedding gift, maybe less for a bridal shower (not sure about that one, I’ve only ever been to one bridal shower and that was my own). Then again, it also depends on the friend or relative getting married - if I was close to them, I might consider spending more money. It also helps if the bride (and/or groom) has set up a gift registry if you’re stuck for knowing how much to spend or what to buy.
Regarding your other costs, are you able to save money by using your own shoes, getting a friend to do the makeup or hair, etc?? I was quite happy to have my bridesmaids use their own shoes (black heels), and one of my bridesmaids was quite happy to do makeup and our hair (she’s a hairdresser by trade). I was quite reluctant to make my bridesmaids pay for their things since it was my day, not theirs, so they just paid for their dresses.
We might be able to provide our own shoes but the hair has to be done since I have no idea how to do what she wants done.
$50 for a wedding gift seems right, though it doesn’t go as far as you’d think it would these days on a registry. $40 for shower gift? Considering that I’m paying to throw the shower too? Is that about right?
As someone who was married last year- I can tell you it’s the thought that counts, not the cost.
If they don’t have a registry, pick something similar to what you would get them for a christmas or housewarming gift. A pretty vase, a nice throw or blanket for their bed, a cocktail shaker and recipe book, a cookery book, a classy scented candle, a bottle of their favourite tipple, whatever suits their personality as a couple best.
If they have a registry, pick something you can afford, which you know that they want.
Don’t be afriad to thinkoutside the box:
One of my friends got me a lovely wooden salad bowl and salad spoons- what makes it extra special is that she bought it in Zanzibar and spent a month hauling it around Africa with her.
Another friend got us a measuring jug, two miniatures of vodka, some celery salt and a tiny bottle of tomato juice, because she knows that the only thing I would really use a measuring jug for is mixing cocktails!
My aunt and uncle who live in Australia sent us a rather ornate didgeridoo, which not only looks gorgeous, but gives my husband hours of amusement.
I have to say that the gifts we have used most since
One way to reduce the amount of money you need to spend, is to increase the amount of effort you put into the gift. For example, I counted cross-stitched a design on a baby bib for a friend who recently had a baby shower. Everyone agreed that this was now a bib which should only be used on special occassions.
Obviously that’s the wrong type of shower gift, but if you sew you could make napkins (in a fabric that is carefully chosen to represent the bridal couple). Or you could type up six of your favorite cookie recipies and give it along with a cookie sheet . . .
Don’t lie awake at night worrying that you aren’t contributing enough financially for the gift(s). The bride and groom know that you have a lot of other responsibilities. But if you want a special, memorable, gift, think outside the gift registry.
I was told by several people involved with my brother’s wedding how annoying it is when people get them stuff that’s not on the registry. They got like 3 toaster ovens, lots of plasticware they couldn’t fit in their kitchen, etc. I know it sounds ungracious of them, but they were kind of overwhelmed by all the stuff they had to do after the wedding, and returning things was a PITA, I guess.
As for hand making something, that’s not my forte. Maybe I’ll try to get related things off the registry so they can have a complete set of something.
My mother saw this at a baby shower, but I don’t know why you couldn’t use it for a bridal shower.
Play Gift Bingo.
Give each player/guest a sheet of paper with a blank BINGO grid drawn on it.
Tell them to put a gift in each square (the center can be free, if you want).
For example, one might put “chair” “spoons” “ice cream maker” “DVD player” “digiridoo” “salad bowl from Zanzibar” (and enough others to fill in all the squares)
As the Bride opens presents, each guest marks off any gifts listed on their board.
Give prizes for the first person to make BINGO across, down, diagonal, etc. Also give a prize for the first person to have all their squares filled (if it happens, otherwise give the prize to the person who had the most squares filled).
Mom thought it was fun, and a nice change from “all those cheesy shower games that no one really likes anyway”.
I TOTALLY agree with this. I’m getting married in May, and just had my shower, and honestly unless somebody gave me a check, I have no idea what they spent, and I didn’t go back to check my registry to see. One of the best gifts I got was a scrapbook one of my friends/bridesmaids made me with pictures of all of us in college.
On average, I would spend about $25-$30 on a shower gift, and maybe $50-$60 on a wedding gift. More if I was really close to the person (eg, I spend $50 and $100 on my sister for her wedding, but that’s an exception).
Really, just go with what you think they’ll like. Maybe get something small off the registry, and something personal as well.
I was only annoyed when someone got us an item (knives, flatware) that was on the registry, but they didn’t get the ones we registered for. On the other hand, gifts of the sort that irishgirl mentioned – with a personal touch – were great!
Along the lines of the scrapbook badbadrubberpiggy mentioned: my sister threw my bridal shower and she asked all the invitees to create a scrapbook page beforehand. She compiled them and gave it to me at the shower. After the shower, she gave me a photo album of pictures taken at the shower. Wonderful gifts!
As to size of gift, I agree that you should give what you can afford and are comfortable with.
I’ll second (or third) the idea of something with a personal touch. Could you collect recipes from friends and relatives and put them together in a personalized cookbook? Or get pictures of her with the other shower attendees and put them together? Or think about what she might need for the honeymoon - if they’re going somewhere tropical, put together a basket of beach stuff like sunscreen, a trashy novel to read, a big floppy beach hat, etc. I’ve come up with some pretty fun and unique gifts that don’t cost much at all. And often those are the ones that people remember. I’m moving soon and someone from my church put together a scrapbook of pictures of people from the church. I know I’ll keep that and treasure it long after I get rid of a lot of store-bought gifts that people have given me. Those are the kinds of gifts that people really treasure and that will remind them of you for a long time.
It is the thought that counts. The only thing is that when I got married, we received many salad bowl sets and candle sticks. So we were set if we became vegetarians and the power went out. So try to get something other people aren’t likely to get them. One of my favorite gifts was a nice set of sheets. that is probably the gift we used the most.