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Nobody tells you how much to spend on a wedding gift, which is exactly why you’re here. The invitation arrives, there’s a registry link buried in the details, and you’re left doing awkward mental arithmetic about how well you actually know the couple.
Here’s the honest answer: there’s no fixed rule, and anyone who tells you there is has invented it. What there is, though, is a set of rough conventions most UK guests work to, and a lot of gifts that get quietly rehomed within a year. This guide covers both. Skip to your budget if you already know it.
The short version
- Colleague or distant relative: £25 to £50 is perfectly normal.
- Friend you see regularly: £50 to £80 is the comfortable middle.
- Close friend, sibling, or the wedding party: £80 to £150.
- Attending as a couple? Most people give one joint gift rather than doubling.
- There’s a registry? Use it. It exists so you don’t have to guess.
How much should you actually spend?
The convention most UK guests work to is loosely tied to how close you are to the couple, not to what the wedding cost. You’ll hear people say you should “cover your plate”, meaning match whatever the couple spent feeding you. Ignore that. It’s an American idea, it’s crept over here through social media, and it turns a gift into an invoice.
What actually matters is proportion. A £30 gift from a colleague is generous. The same £30 from the bride’s sister might raise an eyebrow. Work out where you sit and give accordingly.
Two things that genuinely change the maths:
- Destination weddings. If you’ve spent £700 on flights and a hotel to be there, your presence is the gift. A small, thoughtful token is plenty, and any couple worth travelling for will already know that.
- Multiple events. Engagement party, hen do, wedding. If you’re buying for all three, split your total budget across them rather than treating each as a fresh spend.
One rule that does hold
Give what you can afford without resenting it. A wedding gift bought on a credit card you’re still paying off in March is not a happy memory for anyone, and the couple will never know the difference between the £60 option and the £90 one.
Wedding gifts under £30
The trick in this bracket is to buy one good thing rather than three adequate ones. A single well-chosen item reads as considered. A hamper of small bits reads as a supermarket dash, because usually it was.
A personalised board, in oak or walnut
Engraved with the couple’s surname and wedding date, this is the gift that survives the cull. It gets used, it doesn’t date, and it costs a fraction of what it looks like it cost. Go for solid hardwood rather than bamboo if you can stretch to it. Bamboo warps.
A pair of proper champagne coupes or flutes
Two glasses, not six. Couples receive endless sets of six and have nowhere to put them. A single beautiful pair for anniversaries is a better gift and a cheaper one. Crystal if the budget allows, good glass if not.
A cookbook they’d never buy themselves
Not a beginner’s guide. Something with a point of view: a big Ottolenghi, a River Cottage volume, a proper baking reference. Write the date inside the cover and it becomes a keepsake rather than a paperback.
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Wedding gifts between £30 and £75
This is where most guests land, and it’s the bracket with the widest choice. It’s also where the most money gets wasted, because it’s just enough to buy something decorative and not quite enough to buy something excellent.
Aim for things the couple will touch every week.
A wool or linen throw
Genuinely used, genuinely nice to receive, and almost impossible to get wrong. Lambswool for warmth, washed linen for summer weddings and warmer houses. Avoid acrylic blends. They pill within a season and look it.
A cast iron casserole dish
The classic wedding present for good reason. It outlives most marriages, which is a grim thing to say about a gift but does explain why people still buy them. A 24cm round suits two people. Go 28cm if they cook for crowds.
Good bedding
An unglamorous gift that people love receiving, because almost nobody buys themselves expensive sheets. Look for 400 thread count and above in cotton sateen, or go for washed linen if you know their taste runs that way. Check their bed size first, discreetly.
A framed star map or custom print
The night sky above the venue on the wedding date, or the coordinates of where they got engaged. It sounds twee written down. It works because it’s specific to them and to nobody else. Buy it framed, or you’ve given someone a homework task.
Wedding gifts between £75 and £150
Close friends, siblings, wedding party. At this level you’re buying something the couple has probably wanted for a while and kept putting off.
| Gift | Best for | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Stand mixer | Anyone who bakes, or says they will | £90 to £400 |
| Espresso machine | Couples with a daily coffee-shop habit | £80 to £250 |
| Cabin luggage, matched pair | Frequent travellers, pre-honeymoon | £90 to £180 |
| Experience day | Couples who own everything already | £70 to £200 |
A stand mixer
The classic “club together with four other guests” present. Worth doing properly: the cheap ones struggle with bread dough and get shoved in a cupboard. If the budget won’t reach a good one, buy something else rather than a weak version of this.
An espresso machine
Pays for itself against two flat whites a day, which is the argument to make in the card. Bean-to-cup if the budget stretches, a solid pod machine if not. Check they aren’t already loyal to a particular system before you commit.
Matched cabin luggage
Given before the wedding so they can actually use it on the honeymoon, which is the whole point and a step people forget. Hard shell, four wheels, and check the current cabin dimensions for the airline they’re flying, because they have shrunk.
Statement gifts over £150
Usually parents, occasionally a group of friends pooling together. The main thing here is to ask. At this level a surprise is a risk, and most couples will happily tell you what they’d actually like if you give them the opening.
What tends to land well: a contribution towards a single big honeymoon experience rather than cash into a general pot, a piece of furniture they’ve been saving for, or a commissioned piece of art. What tends not to: expensive china nobody has the cupboard space for.
An experience, booked and paid for
A restaurant they’ve been trying to get into, a night somewhere they’d never justify, a course they’ve talked about. It costs the same as an object and they’ll still be talking about it years later. Book it for a few months after the wedding, when the post-wedding flatness tends to land.
When there’s a registry or a honeymoon fund
Use it. That’s the guidance, and it’s shorter than people expect.
A registry isn’t the couple being unromantic or presumptuous. It’s them saving you forty minutes of anxiety and saving themselves a fourth vase. If you feel the list is impersonal, buy from it and write a proper card. The card is where the sentiment goes.
Honeymoon funds work the same way, with one improvement worth making: most platforms let you put your money against a named experience rather than a general total. Choose the snorkelling trip or the dinner rather than “contribution”. They’ll think of you on the day it happens, which a bank transfer never achieves.
If you’re building your own list, our guide to wedding registry ideas covers what to include and roughly how many items to list.
The Venue Question Checklist
Forty-one questions to ask before you book anything, including the seven most couples only think of afterwards. Free, and it lands in your inbox in a minute.
What not to buy
- Anything with the wedding date on it that isn’t useful. A dated cushion is a dated cushion. A dated chopping board is a chopping board.
- Photo frames. They’ll get eleven. You’re guest number nine.
- Anything requiring assembly in the week they’re leaving for a honeymoon.
- Novelty items referencing the hen or stag do. Funny on the night. Not funny in a living room in April.
- Cash in an envelope with no card. If you’re giving money, say why in writing. It costs nothing and changes everything about how it’s received.
Common questions
Is it rude to give cash as a wedding gift?
No, and in much of the UK it’s now the default. What’s rude is giving it carelessly. Put it in a proper card, write something specific, and if the couple has a honeymoon fund, use that instead of a bare transfer.
How much should a couple give as a joint gift?
One gift, not two. Most couples attending together give somewhere between £70 and £120 depending on closeness, rather than doubling an individual amount.
Do I still buy a gift if I can’t attend?
If you were close enough to be invited and you’d have gone, yes, though it can be smaller. A card alone is fine for a distant invitation you were never going to accept.
When should the gift arrive?
Send it to the couple’s home before the day, or use the registry’s delivery option. Bringing a heavy parcel to the venue creates a logistics problem for someone at eleven o’clock at night. That someone is usually the bride’s mother.
What if I’ve left it too late?
An experience voucher, a good bottle, or a registry item with next-day delivery. Nobody is auditing arrival dates, and a gift a fortnight after the wedding is completely normal.
The one thing worth remembering
The gifts couples talk about years later are almost never the expensive ones. They’re the specific ones: the thing that proved somebody had been paying attention.
So if you’re stuck between a safe £80 option and a slightly odd £35 one that’s exactly them, buy the odd one. Then write a card that says why.