Totally understandable for you to feel hurt by their gift choices, especially when you've been generous with them for their weddings. It doesn't make you a bad person.But you can make yourself feel better by just pushing it aside and chalking it up to the possibilities that:

1. These couples have some pretty big expenses right now, with paying off their weddings or college loans, buying houses, etc. They may have done the best they could while their credit cards are smoking from over-use.

2. That's what they give at weddings, and maybe all the rest of their friends and family received gifts on the same level. Some people, unfortunately, are takers and not givers. Being generous isn't a big value of theirs. But you still love them anyway.

3. They re-gifted. Which there's no excuse for.

Nothing can be done about it now, but the good news is that you're now free from being overly generous with their future gifts for their housewarming, birthdays, holidays, and so on. They just lowered the bar, and now you can spend a little less on their presents in the future, without going super-cheap.

Try to remind yourself of the strength of the friendships over time, how these people have been there for you, why you enjoy their company. You know the wedding is about people, not about the gifts, so just turn this into a positive by focusing on your relationships with them and forgetting about the quality of the gifts. When it comes to your thank-you notes, you should still thank them for the items they gave, and add on a line about how much it meant to you to have them at the wedding. That's a class move, and great etiquette.

--Sharon Naylor

If you have etiquette questions for Sharon, post them on the Ask the Etiquette Expert message board.