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"We&amp;amp;#8217;ve tackled questions about rings, questions about family, and questions about &amp;amp;#8217;maids. Today, Save the Date reader Clover has a question about gifts. Writes Clover: &amp;amp;#8220;I was just invited to my first wedding and mentioned a gift I was considering to a more wedding-savvy friend. Her response: &amp;amp;#8216;As an engagement gift? Or for the wedding?&amp;amp;#8217; Say what? How many gift am I expected to buy one couple?&amp;amp;#8221; Here are my thoughts: Welcome to the world of wedding spending, Clover. I hope you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been saving! The first gift-giving opportunity you might encounter is the engagement party, a pre-wedding bash (often a dinner party) usually hosted by the couple&amp;amp;#8217;s parents. For this you can get a gift off the couple&amp;amp;#8217;s registry; look for something that costs about a third as much as you&amp;amp;#8217;re planning on spending on the wedding gift. (If you get a, &amp;amp;#8220;Hey! We just got engaged! Come grab a drink to celebrate!&amp;amp;#8221; e-mail, this isn&amp;amp;#8217;t an engagement party. No need to bring a gift.) Next up: the bridal shower. Expect to spend what you spent on the engagement gift for the shower, too. The idea here is to &amp;amp;#8220;shower&amp;amp;#8221; the bride with gifts for her new home, so look for something kitchen-y or bedroom-y off the registry. Or, if you&amp;amp;#8217;re feeling saucy, gift the bride with lingerie, massage oil, and such. Finally, the wedding, which most Save the Date readers fork over cash for. The events you don&amp;amp;#8217;t have to bring gifts to: the bachelorette party (plan on buying the bride a drink or two and maybe splitting the cost of her dinner) and the bridal luncheon (for bridesmaids only). Ladies, did I forget anything? Are there other occasions when you need to give a gift to an engaged couple? And do you think my estimations for what to spend are right? Have a wedding dilemma that needs solving? Click here to e-mail me! More reader&amp;amp;#8217;s dilemmas, solved! * &amp;amp;#8220;Help! I Want to Ask a Friend to Be My Maid of Honor&amp;amp;#8212;But Her Husband Just Asked Her for a Divorce!&amp;amp;#8221; * &amp;amp;#8220;Help! We&amp;amp;#8217;re Getting Gifts Before Our Wedding! Can We Use Them Yet?&amp;amp;#8221; * &amp;amp;#8220;Help! How Can I Be a Long-Distance Maid of Honor?&amp;amp;#8221; More Ways to Get Glamour You could win $50,000 just for registering or logging in to Glamour.com! Sign up for Glamour.com&amp;amp;#8217;s Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters! Add Glamour to your iGoogle homepage. Follow Glamour on Twitter. Photo: Jupiter Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/weddings/blogs/save-the-date/2010/03/readers-dilemma-help-how-many>