Gifts for our parents

Gatica

I hope someone can help me out with this. What is the tradition about gifts for parents at your own wedding?
I know it's traditional for parents of the bride to pay for a wedding. Realistically nowadays that doesn't really happen anymore. My partner and I are saving up entirely ourselves for our wedding.
We've also overstretched ourselves and really have to cut back on daily luxuries to meet our budget, and we've not even thought of gifts for our families and bridal party.
We have 3 sets of parents between us. We'd not like to spend a fortune, because we couldn't afford it anymore, but we also don't wanna be stingy towards our parents.
How much should one budget for gift for parents? Is it possible to get them after the wedding? (as we'll have money again then)

Any suggestions would be appreciated...

ElleEm

I never heard of "gifts for the parents". I know that usually the mothers are given a bunch of flowers during the speeches, but that is it. The flowers thing is silly, as the mother has to watch the bouquet for the night and make sure to remember to bring it home the next day. It's almost expected nowadays so I think all the niceness is gone out of it.

I am sure your parents aren't expecting gifts, so don't go mad buying them. It's YOUR wedding day- do what you like!

Gatica

Seriously? I thought it was the done thing.
I've had friends mention that they had not paid for parents' rooms with the view that they wanted to get nicer gifts for them instead, but not sure what it was or what it cost. It just seemed like it would probably be something expensive.
I googled and got very little info, however the little info indicated people spending $300-800 on their parents, mind you these were american sites.
We'd considered getting them a hotel weekend getaway, but it was rather pricey and multiply by 3 and the total grows rather quickly.

Clareman

Gifts for the parents, I've never heard anything like that, it's normal to give the mothers a bouquet of flowers as part of the speeches. It's your day, people are to get you gifts not the other way around

Sleepy

I've always taken presents for parents to indicate that the parents have covered a large portion of the wedding costs. It's certainly not done at every wedding and, tbh, it won't be done at ours.

Gatica

fair enough... I was worrying I was being stingy counting my pennies spent on the parents. Not that I resent giving them anything, just that we judged poorly and didn't budget for a number of things that came up that we simply forgot about...
I would be totally up for getting them something after the wedding, if it didn't look out of place not doing it before the wedding, if you get what I mean.

silly

I think getting them something small after the wedding is a good idea.

We didn't do any flower presentations etc.
We gave my dad a bottle of whiskey and my mom a nice necklace. Nothing too fancy. Just small tokens.
For the groomsmen and bridesmaids, we got cufflinks for the boys and personalised compact mirrors on eBay. I think the cufflinks were about €20 each and the mirrors were €12.50, including engraving. Doesn't have to cost the earth.

Gatica

thanks for those suggestions... I think will go the route of jewellery boxes for mothers, hip-flasks for dads, cufflinks for ushers, compact mirrors for bridesmaids and something else for the groomsmen.
After the wedding will have a look into the other options for what we might wanna give them.

tinkerbell

There is no need whatsoever to buy gifts for parents if you are paying for the wedding. We're not giving the parents gifts. Personally I think the whole flowers for the mother thing is so cringe and pointless - the mothers are stuck minding flowers then for the night! The only gifts we'll be doing is for the bridal party.