Who gets a thank you gift?

As a lot of family and friends are helping us out on the day we have bought a few gifts:

bridesmaids (I will give them their gifts when we are getting ready)

best man

Master of Ceremonies

H2B's SIL who is taking our photos

My cousin who is singing at the ceremony

Dad's friend who is driving us in his black cab

Both our mums

apart from the bridesmaids, we'll give the gifts at the reception

we don't have ushers, but if you do I'd get them a gift as well

We bought for my parents, his mum (she made our cake), bridesmaids and ushers and best man.

We gave them all out the morning of the wedding at home. Personally I'm not a fan of giving gifts during speeches, I would rather give them to them in private.

Everyone's wedding is different and so thank you gifts are as different again. They are generally for people who have done something special either for your day or throughout your life hence usually mums, bridesmaids, best man etc. When you give them is entirely up to you.

The tradition wasthey were given during the speeches, mum's would get flowers and BMs would get a little gift. This has now grown, more American influence I believe, to giving people full on presents and not just a small token. They're often given before the wedding, especially BMs as it's often a piece of jewellery that they wear at the wedding which is nice.More often gifts are presented to Dads which is nice too.

I'll be giving something to my BMs, especially my daughter who is being amazing. Our sons will get something for being Best Man, Usher and my son giving me away and that'll be it. I don't think they'll be done during speeches as it's such a small wedding.

Don't be dragged into any hype though and think you have to do something grand if it's not what you want or can afford. One beauty of this site is you'll get a real mix with some people not doing much for various reasons and others doing much less again for personal reasons.

Like the previous poster said, everyone's ideas are different so go with what would feel right you you. I think we will give the presents out during speeches just for simplicity. They're not the kind of gifts to give out until the day really.

I will be giving presents to the people that are helping us out so will probably be:

Chief Bridesmaid (Only having my daughter as a bridesmaid so a little something for her too)

Best Man

Ushers

My Mum & His Mum

Photographer (Purely because he's there as a guest too, an old family friend doing us a great deal)

I'm getting my CB a personalised wine glass and the Best Man a personalised pint glass. They both enjoy a tipple haha.

Ushers will probably get something like a personalised tumbler glass maybe.

My Mum & His Mum will be something like flowers and a piece of jewelery.

Photographer will be getting something personalised like the blokes.

I'm also not a fan of giving out presents during the speeches, but again that is personal choice. Our presents will be given the night before / morning of the wedding. It should be a token thank you but certainly isn't mandatory!!

I got my 2 BMS jewellery that they can choose to wear on the day if they want to. I chose it with them in mind, not to specifically match the outfits

Flower girl and page boy - got them a flowergirl / page boy teddy each (they are 4 and 6). They are currently sat in the post office waiting for me to pick them up!

Groomsmen & Dads - think we are getting them all a pocket watch. Still to be purchased!! One of the groomsmen already has his dads pocket watch so he might get a bottle of tipple instead

Hadn't planned to get the mums anything... feel a bit mean about that now! Think I might write my mum a letter / card as a keepsake. She would like that. Am planning to do similar for my 2 bridesmaids too.

Apparently the bride and groom usually get each other a gift too to open on the morning....

We have bought gifts for:

Mother of the bride

Mother of the groom

Best man

ushers

Maid of honour

Bridesmaids

We are giving the gifts out during the speeches.

My parents have footed nearly 90% of the bill for our wedding so I am also going to get them something extra after the wedding!

The ushers/best man didn't really get any additional presents other than their suits and us paying for their meal the night before the wedding.

I got my BMs a few little bits and bobs in the run up to the wedding and gave them a bracelet on the morning.

We gave our parents cards on the day but arranged a weekend away after the wedding to thank them.

To me, as a guest, there's nothing worse than having to sit through a groom/bride's speech when they're handing out presents to 20 different people. SO BORING!

I guess traditionally it's the parents, bridesmaids, flower girls, best man and ushers that get gifts.

But I would say really etiquette would state that anyone who has helped with the wedding in some way would be given a small thank you gift. So maybe a friend who helped make invitations, or wrote place cards or anything like that, or was generally really supportive.

But really, you don't have to get gifts if budget is tight, a nicely written card always goes a long way to show your appreciation to someone.

My parents are paying for most of the wedding so going to get them a special weekend away somewhere.

Not sure about my in laws yet. Maybe a nice meal at a posh restaurant? ?

My BMs I'm making them goodie bags which I will give them the night before the wedding with robes, jewellery to wear for the wedding and a thank you card.

The ushers and best men will give them personalised cuff links and a personalised pint glass.

That's all the people I'm buying for.

I'm getting my mum and the two bridesmaids presents.

I did toy with idea of giving the MOTG a present but why would I be getting her a present? For giving birth to my future husband? She hasn't helped one jot or been very supportive - she has just added to the stress by moaning constantly. So I don't see why I should get her anything other than because of some strange precedent of 'it's what you do'.

So apologies for hijacking the thread but those who are buying the MOTG a present - are you buying one because of etiquette or because she has genuinely been helpful or paid for something?

My H2B's mother is planning on being helpful so not just because it's the done thing.

My MIL made our cake

I forgot I also got presents for my SILs who made my stationery and cake even though we paid the one who made the stationery and the cake was our gift. I think I just got carried away with buying presents!

My MIL was as helpful as I wanted her to be, which was not at all. But they contributed hugely financially, so that's why we got them a present.

Thanks everyone for the advice - I was worried that people would expect gifts and didn't want to cause any upset if we missed out someone who would usually receive one. I also do not like giving gifts out at speeches, especially as we have so many BMs and ushers, so will give them at the start of the day I think.

I read with interest, and wasn't planning on commenting, but will now since no one is the same as me.

None. No one got a gift off us really.

We'd run out of money, and whilst both sets of parents contributed massively financially to the wedding, we knew both sets would consider it ridiculous that we took their money to use to buy them presents. We would have liked to have just given the two mums bunches of flowers, but thought that pointless as both had to fly to the wedding and couldn't exactly take the flowers home the next day. We did discuss this with the mums beforehand, as didn't want them to have an expectation and then get nothing.

Our bridesmaids and groomsmen did pretty much nowt in the run up to the wedding. One from each party did help out, but we knew it would have been weird to give one a gift and not the others. It's not like we deliberately snubbed them gift-wise due to not being involved. We genuinely just didn't have any money left to do so. I would have loved to have followed 'etiquette' on that one, despite my opinion on their not helping out much. We did buy their outfits, but that was it.

Edit: The photographer was a friend, so we paid his hotel bill and transportation costs. We also surupticiously paid for one of the bridesmaids and one of the groomsmen to stay at the hotel. It wasn't the more 'helpful' people that we did that for, it was for those we were worried about the hotel being an unaffordable cost - ie. they had one income in a two parent/children household. Perhaps knowing that we had these 3 costs to cover helped us rationalise and accept that we weren't giving 'formal' gifts to anyone???

Totally reasonable. If we didn't have as long to save up then I wouldn't be planning on buying gifts.

We are dispensing with gifts too. We are having a budget wedding and funding it ourselves, there is no money for gifts and even if there was, I'd want to give them to people who are helping us. There areabout twenty of them so not a chance!!