I was talking on a message board about gift giving. Specifically gift giving for weddings. I think it’s an age thing honestly. Lots of people I know are getting married, having babies, buying homes, etc. It’s the right age for these things to happen. So I get to give a lot of gifts.
Anyway, we live in a very high cost of living area. I was raised in a high cost of living area, while DH grew up in an lower cost of living area. So I normally give $50/head for a wedding in where we currently live and when we lived in CA. Maybe $25/head when we were students. More for close family and friends.
So anyway because of the various cost of living areas, I realize that people will give different amounts because of where they live. I wonder is it really that outrageous to spend $50/head for a wedding gift or $100/couple?
What is the average gift you give for your wedding present? And do you live in an low, mid, of high COLA?
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Oct 16, 2008 at 11:05 am
I don’t give a gift based on the cost of the wedding, I give it based on what I can afford and my relationship with the couple. Husband and I would give the same gift regardless if only one of us was able to attend the wedding, or if we were not able to go.
2 Meg // Oct 16, 2008 at 11:34 am
Why would you calculate a wedding gift per person? Wedding gifts are generally for the couple, so your question might mislead/confuse people. I spend about $50 on wedding gifts. I guess that means I spend $25 “a head.” But that seems like a very weird way to look at it…
I also live in a moderate cost of living area (Dallas). COL is not as high as most big urban cities, but at the same time people tend to spend a lot on eating out, gifts, cars, etc due to higher discretionary incomes.
3 Kristy // Oct 16, 2008 at 11:43 am
I normally spend $100 on a gift depending on the relationship with the friend. One of my good friends is getting married this weekend, I am in the wedding and we are giving $200.
4 fengshui // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:27 pm
This really depends upon the wedding and if we are close to the bride/groom, etc. For close friends/ family, we give $75 or more, but if they are just an aquaintance, perhaps more like $40 or so.
5 fengshui // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:31 pm
“Husband and I would give the same gift regardless if only one of us was able to attend the wedding, or if we were not able to go.”
I think that this is because 2 people eating/ drinking cost the couple more, so you “usually” give more. At least we do. Many of our friends paid for their own weddings so I knew that everything that I ate/ drank was costing them money.
6 Jen // Oct 16, 2008 at 1:45 pm
We don’t decide on the budget base on how many of us attend the wedding (just me & DH or DH, DD& me). How much we spend is entirely based on who the people are and their relationship to us. For example, my favorite cousin is getting married next month, we will spend about $500 on the wedding gift. When DH’s coworker got married (I did not know them very well), we spent about $25 on their wedding gift.
7 LivingAlmostLarge // Oct 16, 2008 at 2:02 pm
It’s for me and my DH, not to the couple. So for example I’m saying per person from us. Because it’s not exactly the same gift from my DH and I versus our single bachelor’ roomie KWIM?
I agree it is based on the relationship, but is there a minimum? I feel sort of obligated at a minimum level to give $50-100 for a wedding. Mostly because of the area we live in it’s expensive to get married.
Closer friends and family get more. I agree Jen, my brother I gave $500, well actually I bought 2 expensive place settings! Yikes! I hope they never break.
8 fengshui // Oct 16, 2008 at 4:08 pm
“I agree it is based on the relationship, but is there a minimum? I feel sort of obligated at a minimum level to give $50-100 for a wedding. Mostly because of the area we live in it’s expensive to get married.”
So I have a right to feel like I got the shaft when there were people who showed up to our wedding and gave us NOTHING, not even a card? I talked about this on another blog and got slammed because they thought that it was wrong to “expect” gifts. We were “hoping” for gifts because we paid for a lot of our wedding ourselves and were hoping that the gifts could “help us” recover from it. But there were a handful of people, mostly old college buddies of my DH, and some couples, who showed up, guzzled free beer, and left with out bringing a gift, or even a CARD. If people are struggling financially, I didn’t want them to buy a gift, but a card with a nice personal message would have been nice…..
9 LivingAlmostLarge // Oct 16, 2008 at 4:49 pm
When we got married some of our friends did not have a lot of money because of student loans, etc. We were very pleased when they gave us some very thoughtful gifts from our registry. We think of them when we drink beer, they gave us two mugs for a total of $10! Another couple gave us a $15 pitcher.
So it’s was not expected that we get a gift. But it sure was nice! And cards were given at least.
I feel more money is appropriate now as well than previously because we have more money. NOT being superficial, but when we were students we had less money so we gave less. Now that we have more, I think it would be cheap to give the same amount, IMO.
By the way, some friends also gave us a bottle of wine with a note. Not expensive but thoughtful!
10 fengshui // Oct 16, 2008 at 7:42 pm
“By the way, some friends also gave us a bottle of wine with a note. Not expensive but thoughtful!”
I totally agree. It is the thought that matters.
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