Courthouse wedding gift ?

Lauree1183

DH's brother and his fiance are getting married at the Hennepin County Courthouse next week.  In the next year they will have a beach wedding in Cali and/or a wedding in China, where she is from.  They are doing the courthouse wedding now to help assist with getting her the proper papers to get a job (she's here on a student visa). 

Question is MIL and I don't know what we should do for a gift.  They are working on getting a place together now so I know they need house stuff.  However, they are not registered anywhere.  Do we do a gift now, and at their eventual destination wedding?  Or just a gift now and no gift later?  Or a gift at each event?  If you would do a gift now would you do cash or a household item? 

wittyschaffy

I would give a gift now because this is really their "official" wedding - the one that counts anyway!  If they've not registered, I would go with a gift card to a store they shop at or cash.  If you want to get them something specific, just give a gift receipt incase it isn't their style.  I hated that part of wedding gifts - some of our non registry stuff was lovely but the rest were pretty bad.  I worked at a cooking store for 6 years and people kept buying us kitchen stuff thinking that we didn't register for enough of it to begin with when the reason we didn't register for it was because we already had it.  

belmont1785

I would do one gift, now. Personally I would give cash, just because its easy, and even if they were registered somewhere, they might have to take it back/exchange it etc.

 

It's impersonal, but easy. I'd go for a one time cash gift at the courthouse wedding.

StrawberryBlondie

I would do one now because courthouse or not, it's still their wedding. 

razamataz

We had a courthouse wedding followed a year later by a full-on wedding.

I personally wasn't expecting gifts or anything since everyone knew we had our big wedding in a year -  but my father took everyone out for a very nice meal - and my sister suprised me with a small cake done in the design had been considering for a wedding cake (ended up changing my mind completely by the time our big wedding came around).

Then, as if that wasn't enough, my father and FIL booked us a room at a local B&B and put roses and a bottle of champagne in it.  Incredibly sweet and unexpected!

Soooo, I guess what I am saying is that if you don't want to get them a gift or something along the traditional lines, what about surprising them with something to make their day extra special?  Like I said, we weren't expecting gifts and we really hadn't planned anything to make the day special, but our family sure wanted it to be special and their thoughtfulness made it an amazing and memorable day!

For friends of ours who have gone the courthouse route, we gave them a gift card to Macy's. Everyone can find something at Macy's that they want/need!

anitalynn

I would give a wedding gift now, and probably another one when they have their symbolic wedding. But I really love giving gifts, but that's me.

 

ETA: iPhone fail 

smoo&brown

We're in the middle of nearly identical situation right now. DH's best friend and his wife are both in the Air Force and needed to get married this past summer in a courthouse wedding.  They are not considering it their "real" wedding because they're doing a church wedding this year.

I can't go to a wedding without bringing a gift so I got this wedding certificate holder engraved with their names only (no date since there are two dates...).  It seemed appropriate and came to about just $30 with the engraving.  I'll probably get a gift for the church wedding too off the registry if they have one.

Lauree1183

We didn't feel comfortable doing cash just because they tend to fritter it away on useless stuff, and we really wanted to make sure they got something for their home.  They did mention they wanted a dining table from IKEA so we got them $50 to Ikea and then some candle holders and candles from IKEA as well.  I was pretty happy with our gift to them :-)  

Knottie1428125200

I would prefer to gift some beautiful dress. When you gift a dress to anyone, always make sure you select dress that not only you will love to look at, but that she will love to wear. I have bookmarked some attractive collection of dresses from HouseOfBrides, they have beautiful designs.