Is it common or expected to get gifts for your parents?

Interested to see what others have to say. My parents are contributing financially but his are not and I never thought about gifting them anything. We never asked for the money

View Quoted Comment

Same, we didn't ask or expect any financial contribution from either of our parents. Fingers crossed others can share their experience because I have no idea what the right thing to do is!

I’ve heard of this and am not planning to gift our parents. We are paying for our wedding and there are enough moving parts. Our parent’s “gifts” are celebrating with us.

We're going to get our parents high-quakity photo albums of the wedding, once our photographer delivers the pictures. Beyond that, I have no idea what we would get them. I know we "should" but I'm terrible at picking gifts and my future in-laws are extremely difficult people to shop for.

This depends entirely on your social circle and what is common with them so ask older generations when in doubt. If you haven’t heard of it before, then it likely is not common in your circle.


While it is common and expected on WW, parent gifts are not common in our circles. I would not consider lodging at the wedding to be a gift. A heartfelt card would be appreciated. If you do give a gift, stick with something non wedding related.

We are paying for our wedding ourselves so I don't know if we will fo that. We really don't want too add to the budget but not set on it

Both our parents contributed financially to our weddings but we didn't give them gifts - they both considered it their gift to us to help out with the cost of the wedding and it seemed strange to us to give them a gift in return for what they themselves considered to be their gifts to us.

With that said, we have just spent $700 on high quality wedding albums for our parents so that will be an unrelated gift in itself.

The only gift I can think of would be nice photo albums after you get the pictures.

View Quoted Comment This. Definitely getting parents photo prints made after the photos come in but I’m not getting them gifts before the wedding. I might write them cards to give them when we give gifts to our bridal party at the rehearsal dinner though.

View Quoted Comment See we’re not even getting a wedding album for ourselves right away so I feel it would be weird to do so for our parents lol

I think everyone who’s parents are contributing financially should definitely get them something or even a thank you card. Meanwhile some of us have to pay for our parents… My parents aren’t paying for anything. You guys are so lucky.

We paid for 80% of daughter and SIL's wedding, his dad paid 15%, and they paid the remainder (his mom didn't contribute). They gave all four of us parents small token gifts (e.g., custom cuff links for the dad's, personalized embroidered handkerchiefs for the moms) which were very thoughtful, but what really mattered to me is that each of them wrote each of the four of us a personal thank you note. I will cherish those forever, especially the one from SIL.... He and daughter started dating their sophomore of high school and had been together for more than 8 years when they married, so he practically grew up in our home and spent holidays, vacations, recovering from wisdom teeth extractions, etc., with us. In his note he very sweetly let me know how much he appreciated all of that and how much it means to him that I've always treated him as part of the family.... Like I said, I'll cherish that forever!

We're not planning it. I plan on expressing the thank you to them all in writing, but no formal gift of any kind. My parents are paying for the majority of everything, which was extremely unexpected. When we told them we were getting married and my dad said "here's your budget" I was flabbergasted. And told him as much! I'm 35, I did not expect anything.

But I also don't think my parents expect anything. And they are doing a lot - not only are they paying for it, but my mom is our florist and is custom making my dress (I'm paying material cost). They are thrilled to be doing it for us. I'll probably get them printed/framed photos and pay for them after the day, and definitely plan on writing something to them so they know how much I appreciate everything they are doing. Honestly I'm not sure what I would give them if I was giving them a gift! They are tough to buy for (especially my father).

I think gifts are certainly nice (I'm getting something for my wedding party) but verbal/written appreciation counts for a whole hell of a lot in my parents' eyes. After the fact, we'll probably take them all out to a nice dinner (our treat) as a thank you as well before my parents head back to the opposite coast.

Only our moms are contributing, so we're getting them a spa pass as a gift. They're also jointly hosting the bridal shower, so I feel they need something in return that they'd like.