Wedding Planning Tips for Brides -- from iVillage Wedding Expert Anne Chertoff
- Weddings
- From I Will to I Do
Did His Parents Buy You an Engagement Gift?
We got a call over the weekend that a cousin got engaged. The groom’s mom wanted to ask me if she was supposed to get her future daughter-in-law an engagement gift. There was a tradition where the parents of the bride gave the groom a watch and the groom’s parents gave the bride a pearl necklace.
I rarely hear of anyone getting these gifts, and it made me wonder if parents are still following this old-fashioned tradition. Maybe instead of pearls and a watch, parents are giving the bride and groom more modern gifts, or in lieu of a gift they are giving the couple money for the wedding instead?
There’s no right or wrong in this situation, and many brides, grooms and their parents aren’t even aware of it. So let me ask you…
I've never heard of the tradtion where the groom's parents buy the bride a gift. There are so many 'traditions' nowadays that it is really hard to keep up with all of them. My fiancee's parents didn't buy me a gift, but they are not very traditional at all
My fiance's parents gave me a beautiful pair of white sapphire earrings. They gave his sister an identical pair on her birthday, to wear on her wedding day. His mother fell in love with them so she also got a pair. So once we were engaged they gave them to me, as it had become a tradition for the females in his family. I'm not sure if they were even familiar with the tradition.