What to Do When Close Friends and Family Members Don't Get You a Wedding Gift

When your big day is over be prepared to welcome in a wave of post-wedding sadness where you hope and wish and pray that you could go back and relive the best day of your life. Unless you’ve been gifted a time machine, you don’t have many other options than to jump back into reality and get started on those thank-you notes.

As you’re opening up envelopes and unwrapping gifts from your guests, you might start to notice that a handful of your close friends and family didn’t give you anything to help celebrate your wedding day.

Maybe they forgot? We’ve all found ourselves walking into the ceremony realizing that while we made it there on time, the gift didn’t, and it’s left on our kitchen countertop. There’s also a chance that on the day of your wedding, your guest doesn’t have the budget to hand over $50, which according to Wedding Wire is the least amount you should give a couple getting married, so they need to give an “IOU” or a rain check and send something in later on.

If you’re following rules of modern-day etiquette, then the only thing you can really do is wait. According to Lizzie Post, an etiquette expert and the co-host of Emily Post’s “Awesome Etiquette” podcast, guests have three months to give you a gift.

It used to be one whole year but now that we live in the digital world, Post says that a quarter of that time is all your guests really need.

Maybe they thought their presence alone on the dance floor was the best gift of them all, just like Southern Charm's Shep Rose, who recently was a wedding guest at Brittany Cartwright and Jax Taylor’s Kentucky castle wedding.

When The Daily Dish asked him what he bought the newlyweds to celebrate, he simply said, "I don't get gifts for weddings. My gift is my presence. I have never, ever, ever, ever gotten a gift for a wedding. What a stupid, stupid thing. I am spending literally a $1000 to come and see you — that's enough."

While no couple wants to hear that kind of statement from a close friend and family member, the truth is it’s OK to not bring a gift. There’s no set in stone rule that a person has to. Yes, it’s expected. Yes, it’s often appreciated, since the couple spent big bucks to have that person at their party, but no, it’s not a must.

So if you’re bothered by the people in your life who came to your wedding empty-handed, give them the three-month grace period, and then confirm their intentions with a script like this:

"We were going through all of our wedding gifts and just wanted to make sure we didn’t lose yours in the mix. It’s OK if you didn’t send one, but just wanted to confirm we didn’t lose it at the venue."

Perhaps their flat out Shep-like honesty will be the greatest gift to your friendship yet.