Gifts for Parents?

rungirl12

I never understood why you would buy your parents gifts at YOUR wedding.  Can someone clue me in to the reasoning behind this?  Does this make the assumption your parents are paying for the wedding?

We are paying for the wedding ourselves (though my parents gave us already a very generous cash gift to be spent how we choose that would more than cover the cost of the wedding & his parents have volunteered to pay the bar tab & rehearsal dinner meal).

Is anyone getting their parents gifts?  What are you getting?

DeClue82

I think you get your parents gifts if they are helping with the wedding payment... and because they're well... your parents... they raised you and this is the last time you'll be seen by the world as "daddy's little girl" before you move on and start a family of your own. 

I plan to get my father an album professionally made by the photographer, but that won't be ready until later, so I'm not really sure what I'll be getting him the day of. We plan to do the same thing for Fi's parents. So I'm kind of interested to see what people are giving too... )

odustudent22

I am getting my mom, my dad and step mom, and his mom each a very nice bottle of wine, and we are presenting them to the parents at the RD when we give all the other wedding party gifts

spazticrexe

My FI and I have discussed making Wedding albums for our respective parents - I think at the RD we'll probably give them a nice card thanking them for all their support and let them know to we'll be giving them an album in the next few months. We's probably do something a little extra for FI's parents since they graciously footed the bill for our honeymoon.

mercy4

My parents paid for everything so I will at least give them a nice card and thank them at the reception but they probably wouldn't want me to waste the money on a gift when we are spending so much. I will give them a video and album but they paid for that actually. I think it's the gesture. I will give my mom flowers at my shower even though she didn't plan it. Same for FMIL though she contributed a little bit.

Ajoyd

I do believe it is typically a thank you for hosting the wedding and also a sentimental gesture. I don't think people usually get their parents super expensive gifts but rather more thoughtful gifts.

I'm still not sure what to get my parents. I'm going to do wedding albums for them but that will probably be a Christmas gift. I'm thinking maybe a nice frame that they could use for one of the wedding photos.

jezabella

Both sets of parents gave us $5000 and about $6500 respectively and we are putting in about $10,000 of our own money.  We are getting them both these nice picture frames from Etsy that says "Today a bride, tomorrow a wife, forever your little girl. Love Jessie & Eddie" (and a similar one for groom for his parents) with a spot for our wedding picture and a baby/younger photo.  We are planning to give these at the rehearsal dinner as a thank you to them for their love, support, and their contribution to our wedding.  We won't have a wedding picture to stick in the frames for that date, but I'm planning to put a picture of us from our engagement in there for the presentation to them.  However I totally love gift-giving and sentimentality so to me I'm happy to provide them with something

I do know a friend's mother who got a crappy hand-made scrapbooked frame of a few wedding pictures as a thank you, and she had paid tens of thousands of dollars for the wedding and was totally unimpressed with her thank you gift.  She thought it was quite tacky and unappreciatvie of her DIL (who happened to be a total B**** to her son, and tore the family apart so that probably had some bearing on her attitude about the gift itself) giving her that particular gift.  So I think putting thought into the gift is important (especially to the in-laws!!).