I’d say that the content of the gift is more important than the raw cost, and the next biggest deciding factor should be what you can afford.
I got married earlier this year. We decided first and foremost that we weren’t going to expect gifts. People were spending money, in some cases a fair wedge, on travel and accommodation just to be there. That, we figured, was gift enough.
However, we reasoned that some people might want to give a gift anyway and it should be their call rather than ours. I suggested asking for donations towards the honeymoon; money was tight (cos, y’know, we were paying for a bloody wedding) and there was nothing we really needed. My OH reckoned that was rude, and that a gift list would be expected. And indeed, quite a few guests did ask for a list.
So, we put together two lists; a John Lewis one with the traditional gubbins, crockery and soft furnishings and the like, and an Amazon list with more esoteric items like Blu-ray box sets and board games. Our invite then said something like, “we really don’t want you to buy us anything as your present to us is the fact that you’re coming to share our day, however if you really want to then here’s the list.”
In the end, I was quite blown away by people’s generosity. We had a fairly emotional day going through everything. Some people hadn’t spent very much at all, some had spent hundreds. And you know, that’s absolutely fine. We have friends who are on benefits, and friends who are on a six-figure salary. And it doesn’t matter; every single thing we opened from the £200 piece of art to the hand-made card all made us think of the persons donating and how sweet they were to have thought of us.
Our wedding was the culmination of a lot of work, it was a wonderful day full of love and warmth spent surrounded by people close to us, and whether someone had spent a fortune on us or nothing at all is really, really low on the list of what was important.