Bridal shower gift if already got a big wedding gift

As a bride, I loved receiving personalized items with our last name on them. Maybe you could find something like that on Etsy?

The prim and proper etiquette-stickler ladies I grew up with always said that a shower gift and wedding gift come from the same registry so you pick one or the other, since not everyone attends the shower. If you bought an expensive item as a wedding gift, you would bring a card (without cash) and something inexpensive you can afford to the shower just for her.

I think you could give something inexpensive then to the bride. Gifts don’t have to be expensive

If I was the bride you were referring to, I would not expect you to bring anything else to the shower except your love and fellowship. I know not everyone is like that, but I don’t really know how we got to this point of expecting gifts for every single thing. Growing up, I learned to bring a gift to the shower, yet if I wasn’t invited to the shower or couldn’t make the shower, then I brought a gift to the wedding (and also there were times where we kept a gift in our car for a few weeks until we could catch the person at church). Only recently have I started shipping gifts to the recipient because I couldn’t make a shower.

A card with a note would be great.

In my area, it's common to give both a shower gift (usually something off the registry worth around $50 or under is the norm) and then a wedding gift the day of the wedding (most often cash. My husband and I usually give a minimum of $200, and that is what we saw as well when we got married).

Forgot to add: as a bride, I was/ would be fine without a gift. Everyone's financial situations are different, and if your'e invited to the shower I'm assuming you're someone close to the bride. The above is just what I've seen over the years around me.

Is it possible for you to give the large registry gift to the shower and then just a card to the wedding? If you don’t show up to the shower with a gift she may wonder why, but if you give her a huge shower gift then by the wedding she’ll understand why you didn’t give anything that day lol.


Either that, or as Caytlyn suggested, something personalized is great and wouldn’t cost too much! I have a friend who’s in law school (so of course she’s like flat broke hahaha) and for our shower she got us personalized bride and groom champagne glasses with our names on them. Couldn’t have cost too much money, but it was so special to use those at our wedding and have them as a keepsake! Maybe something like that, or you could give her a bridal “treat yourself” package like a bottle of wine and/or box of chocolates or something. Can’t go wrong with that!

A lot of people sent their shower gifts before the shower, we did not expect to have all the gifts there.

If you've sent a huge thing off the registry already, a card or something low-key like that will suffice.

I would do something low-key - a card, something inexpensive off the registry or etsy, etc.

I have always done a smaller gift for people's shower and a larger gift the wedding. I wouldn't show up to a shower empty handed, but if I already bought a large ticket item for the wedding gift, I wouldn't feel the need to spend a ton on a shower gift. Something small like Elizabeth suggested would be ideal