Guide · Wedding gifts
When to send a wedding gift
Before the wedding, or within three months after it. The year you have heard about is one publisher’s tradition and another’s rumor — both are quoted below, word for word.
The short answer
Send it before the wedding if you can, and within three months of the wedding if you can’t. Three months is the tightest deadline any major etiquette publisher prints, so a gift that lands inside it is on time by everyone’s standard at once — and you never have to work out whose rule applies to you. house judgment
The reason anyone asks is that two of the most-quoted sources in the category say different things, and the difference is not a detail. One of them treats the famous one-year allowance as live etiquette. The other calls it a rumor, by name, in the same sentence that gives you the real deadline.
What the Emily Post Institute says
Emily Post is unambiguous, and unusually blunt about the year: sourced
“Contrary to a current rumor that you have a year to send a gift, it really should be sent soon after you receive your invitation or, on the outside, within three months of the wedding.”
Their preferred timing is earlier still — “preferably, send your gift to the bride before the wedding or to the couple soon thereafter” — which is also the practical advice, because a gift that arrives before the wedding is not competing with a honeymoon, a house move and several hundred thank-you notes for the couple’s attention.
What The Knot says
The Knot prints both figures, on two different pages. Its guide to giving a gift after the wedding states the year plainly: sourced
“Guests actually have up to one year after the wedding to send the couple a wedding gift.”
Its wedding-gift etiquette guide keeps the year but recommends against using it:
“Traditionally, guests have up to a year after the big day to send a gift” … “many experts agree that guests should aim to get their presents delivered to the couple within three months of the wedding.”
So the two publishers agree on more than the argument suggests. Both name three months as the target. What they actually disagree about is whether the twelve months behind it is a real allowance or a story that got repeated until it sounded like one.
Which one this site follows
Three months. Where two sources disagree, KindHow uses the narrower band — the same rule the mover tip calculator uses when its two hourly sources print different numbers — so that every figure we give you is one both publications support. house judgment
The year is better read as the edge of when a gift is still welcome than as a schedule you are entitled to run out. Nobody is offended by a present in month eleven. But the couple wrote their thank-you notes in month one, and a gift arriving after that is a second, separate errand for them.
If you are already past it
Send it anyway. Emily Post’s sentence on this is one line long — “but late is better than never so send your gift when you can” — and it is the whole of the guidance. sourced There is no etiquette requirement to explain yourself, and a long apology in the card makes the lateness the subject of the gift.
Does being late change the amount?
No, and our calculator has no input for it on purpose. What you give is a function of your relationship to the couple, what it cost you to get there, and whether you are going in with other people — not of your postal history. Adding money to compensate for a late gift is a tax on your own embarrassment, and the couple cannot see the calendar you are apologising to. house judgment
Now for the number.
The wedding gift calculator starts from The Knot’s published figure for how well you know the couple, then shows every adjustment as its own line — each one tagged sourced or house judgment, so you can disagree with any of them and watch the total move.
Work out the amount →Sources
- The Emily Post Institute — Choosing a Wedding Gift — the three-month deadline, the “current rumor” wording, and “late is better than never.”
- The Knot — Wedding Gift Etiquette Rules — the year as tradition, and the three-month recommendation on top of it.
- The Knot — Giving Wedding Gifts After the Wedding — the flat statement of the one-year allowance.
Informational only. This guide reports what named etiquette publishers have written, and labels our own reasoning as ours. It is not professional advice, and no deadline here is a rule anyone can enforce. Last reviewed: August 2026.
More on how KindHow separates a source from a house call: the published methodology. Every guide is listed on the guides index.