What is proper wedding gift notification etiquette for family or friends?

Your family has up to one year to purchase gifts for you. It would be impolite to ask again or even to remind them where you’re registered.

If your family doesn’t pull through by the holidays, and you customarily exchange gifts, then I’d say with tact, you could remind them that you have a gift registry that you’d prefer they shop from. Or better yet, since the registry usually allows you to get a discount, you could then politely ask for gift cards to complete your registry with.

EDIT: @Bill…my husband & I eloped. We made certain to throw a reception for our family/friends later the same year. Maybe, you & your spouse would consider doing the same. If you both were looking forward to being well set with wedding gifts a gathering to celebrate could help. Even something as simple as a family cookout to celebrate your nuptials might produce the results you were hoping for.

If the details of the registry were included, and you all know that they received the invitations, then your responsibility is done, other than sending out thank-you notes for any gifts received.

You really cannot ask someone where the gift is. They have no obligation to give you anything.

As @SpatzieLover says, people may give wedding gifts up to one year after the date of the ceremony.

It is a little teensy bit greedy to be looking for gifts. You should enjoy your wedding for what it is.

Are you kidding? No one owes you a gift. Ever, under any circumstance.

Even my own siblings? I honestly don’t care if a distant cousin that I have not seen in several years did not get us a gift for the wedding, but my own brothers and sister?!! (FYI, there are no internal conflicts within my family that would explain this behavior)

No one. Ever.

A wedding present is just like a work bonus. It should be appreciated if given, but not expected. That includes your siblings.

Believe it or not, it is still considered in poor taste to include the wedding registry with the invitations in the first place. It’s like you are fishing for gifts, and by the way your question is worded, it does in fact sound like you are fishing hard for gifts.

The proper way for people to find out about your gift registry, should they want to send you a gift from it (and there is no obligation to give gifts from the registry, some people prefer giving their own special gifts from their own imagination and heart) is when someone decides and RSVP’s for the wedding, then they call someone (usually the mother or the sister or the best friend) to discreetly ask where the couple is registered.

The other thing that a couple can do, that is actually considered OK in the modern world, is to have a website set up so that people can check it out to see where the couple is registered, but it’s still very tacky to put a registry request in an invitation, unless you want people to think that you’re only inviting them to the wedding to shake them down.

Furthermore, you should never inquire as to whether or not your friends and relatives, whether they were actual guests at the wedding or not, if they were planning to send you a gift. It is not a requirement to send a gift, it’s just a nice gesture. It’s an ugly gesture to ask people if or why not they haven’t sent a gift.

I’m afraid that too many weddings these days have turned into ugly shakedowns, rather than a sharing of your love and comittment with friends and family.

@Kardamom – I sincerely appreciate your candor. Thank you.

You put the wedding out of reach of most of your guests, and at considerable personal expense to all those who came, and now you are keeping a checklist of who has and hasn’t ponied up the largesse you think they owe you? Pardon me, but I am embarrassed for you.

Gifting is well, gifting. Gifts shouldn’t be expected even for people who actually did make the trip to see you wed in person.

It boggles my mind (we’re in the midst of our own wedding details) that people even ask us how much we expect to “clear” on our wedding. It’s a bit insulting that’s what celebrations have come down to.

@Bill_Lumbergh Since you asked this, I am wondering, is it that you have purchased gifts for your siblings weddings and are wondering why they haven’t returned the gesture?

@Jeruba – I am embarrassed I asked this question, but I do understand your concerns.

Please understand, we are not a selfish couple, but we are honestly concerned if there might be an underlying reason why close family members choose not to get us a wedding gift. Could it be actions of blatant disapproval of my marriage to my wife? Was it because we decided on a destination wedding, which might have unintentionally excluded a majority of our families? Or am I really reading too much into this?

@SpatzieLover – No, I was too young to provide gifts at my sibling’s weddings. (ages 8 & 12)

@Bill_Lumbergh: I’m trying to think of why people might not choose to gift you two:

Have you and your wife been married before, are you an older couple over 25yrs? A lot of people, if they don’t attend a ceremony usually choose to send a card for an established (living together) or older couple who it’s assumed already have household items and such.

The destination wedding would be my guess. Most people would probably send an announcement they had already wed but not an invitation for people to join to observe the ceremony because of the great expense most people cannot anywhere near afford. I’d be prepared for congratulations by email, text, facebook and few cards but not physical gifts.

@Neizvestnaya – We are an older couple, both in our early thirties, and have lived together for over a year prior to the marriage. This might help answer a few of our questions. Thank you.

@Bill_Lumbergh It is odd for your original family to not have provided a gift or gifts, and I would question the situation as you & your wife are.

Are your parents still alive?

Did you have a house-warming in some other way receive household gifts from your family in the past?

I was married at 30 and had been dating my husband for years prior to our elopement. We still rec’d gifts from all of our siblings. Again, I did provide a reception months later in our hometown. That may be the difference here.