Wedding Etiquette Forum

Just married, going through gifts and envelopes

hello all! We just got married last Saturday and have finished going through our gifts and envelopes from the reception. Advice/etiquette needed! There were a couple people who were confused where our card box/gift table was during the night. We missing gifts/envelopes from about 12 of our guests. I am not trying to be greedy by this but am worried that those missing might have been misplaced due to confusion. How do we go about this?? Thank you :)

Re: Just married, going through gifts and envelopes

  • I am a bit confused about what you mean by confusion over the gift/card table?

    Do you mean guests left cards at the bar? Candy table? Cake table? Gave it to one of your parents? Regardless of where gifts were left, I hope everything was collected at the end of the night.

    If you don't have a gift/card, unless you know for certain that a gift was stolen, I would assume that is what you were given, and it would be inappropriate to ask about gifts. Some guests may choose to mail their gift/card after the wedding, some may have given nothing at all. If you truly think some gifts were lost/stolen, there is not much you can do about that now, but if you are worried someone is going to think you are a poor host for not sending a TY note for a gift you didn't receive, it can casually be passed by word of mouth that some gifts were stolen, but you still should not start directly asking around for who didn't give a gift.
  • You do nothing about this. 
  • You do nothing but send thank yous to the people who gave you gifts. If any of the people who didn't give a gift/card ask if you got theirs, be honest and say no, but don't reach out to them. 
  • Somewhere between 5-10 guests (out of 175) at my wedding didn't give a gift/card.  My sister had similar numbers.  So it's not terribly unusual.  Send thank you cards to whoever gave you a gift.
  • jacques27jacques27 member
    First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper
    edited September 2016
    ksulaski said:
    hello all! We just got married last Saturday and have finished going through our gifts and envelopes from the reception. Advice/etiquette needed! There were a couple people who were confused where our card box/gift table was during the night. We missing gifts/envelopes from about 12 of our guests. I am not trying to be greedy by this but am worried that those missing might have been misplaced due to confusion. How do we go about this?? Thank you :)

    Unless you personally witnessed those 12 people with a gift/card in their hands looking confused, don't assume they brought one and just couldn't figure out how to ask any of the dozens of other people at the reception where to put it.  Just assume they didn't bring anything and move on. 

    There's really no way for you to inquire without looking greedy.  Some people don't give gifts or some people don't bring them to weddings (I don't - I always mail before or after the wedding because it's one less hassle to deal with on the day) and that's perfectly ok. 
  • Just send thank-yous for the gifts you've received.

    Beyond that, leave things alone. Any kind of inquiry about gifts not received at weddings, whether or not they were misplaced, makes you look greedy.
  • Unless Jill asked your Mom or yourself if you got their card/gift - and it's not there with your wedding stuff and you've gone through EVERYthing, and the others are highly suspicious (i.e. Uncle Jack gives everyone a $10 toaster and brags about wrapping it in a brown paper bag with duck tape and you saw him bring it in and it wasn't there when you unwrapped everything) - then the proper thing to do is to follow up with everyone including contacting the venue (who may have security footage) and potentially filing a police report for stolen items.  Otherwise - the proper action is no action other than an thank-you for attending note.  Not everyone brings a card nor gift, and traditionally people have up to a year to send one if they didn't bring it to the wedding.  Otherwise, you should never contact someone to ask if they got you a gift and you can't find it. 
  • MesmrEwe said:
    Unless Jill asked your Mom or yourself if you got their card/gift - and it's not there with your wedding stuff and you've gone through EVERYthing, and the others are highly suspicious (i.e. Uncle Jack gives everyone a $10 toaster and brags about wrapping it in a brown paper bag with duck tape and you saw him bring it in and it wasn't there when you unwrapped everything) - then the proper thing to do is to follow up with everyone including contacting the venue (who may have security footage) and potentially filing a police report for stolen items.  Otherwise - the proper action is no action other than an thank-you for attending note.  Not everyone brings a card nor gift, and traditionally people have up to a year to send one if they didn't bring it to the wedding.  Otherwise, you should never contact someone to ask if they got you a gift and you can't find it. 
    I was of the understanding that you don't send a thank you for attending note because it could look gift grabby.
    Correct. You don't give thank you cards topeople for attending, because  that was what the reception is. 

    The only time I heard of someone contacting guests to inquire about gifts is when the card box was stolen at the hotel. The bride and groom's parents called people, (this wasn't a wedding I attended, a friend told me about it). She said the mother of the bride was very apologetic but explained the situation and just asked if they gave anything because they still wanted to thank people. 
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  • my best friend (also my MOH) said she had a card for me in the car and it never made it to the card box and she never mailed it afterward. I never brought it up because it would be weird. Maybe she never found it again, maybe she did and figured it was too late. Who knows. 
  • Are you assuming that there was confusion over the card/gifts table because you didn't get 12 gifts?  That's super greedy.  


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