We are getting gifts for all all our wedding party and parents. We are getting them engraved with their names, position (ie "mother of the bride" "best man") and the date. The issue we're up against is my fiance's parents are not together (haven't been since he wan an infant), he was raised primarily by him mom and stepdad, but his biological father and "stepmother" have also been around almost his entire life. He refers to both his father and stepdad as "Dad" but has only one "Mom" We will be including both sets of his parents in pictures etc. My question is do we get his Dad's wife a gift along with the other parents? If so what can we engrave on it? "mother of the groom" isn't really appropriate and I think would offend his actual mother, "Stepmother of the groom" has crossed by mind but sounds strange, particularily as we were planning to have two "father of the grooms" and no "stepfather" because he thinks of them both as his dads. I fear if we include her we risk offending the grooms mom, and if we leave her out she may feel neglected. I find this particularily hard because I am much closer to her than to the groom's biological mother (since I've spent more time with her). We also have this same issue when it comes to introducing everyone in the wedding program.
Etiquette Now
WEDDING ETIQUETTE EXPERT
Post #2 of 2
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Re: gift for stepmother of the groom
[In reply to]
Dear Kira,
Since you are treating her as one of the mothers, which is very considerate, it would be best to also give her a gift when you give one to the other parents. I agree that it could cause hurt feelings if she was excluded. You don't necessarily have to have hers engraved and you could let her know why--there isn't a great title to list. You could verbally refer to her as the wife of the groom's father.
gift for stepmother of the groom
