The couple should also include a note thanking people for the gift and explaining that the marriage has ended and their support is appreciated. Even if thank-you notes already have been sent, this is the acceptable course of action.
If gifts came from a registry with a single store, they likely could be shipped back to the company, which could then credit the people who bought them, says Kenny Cohen, owner of Contemporary Concepts in the US.
If they were purchased at different places, they would need to go back to the giver to return.
But refunding gifts from failed marriages isn't something his store deals with a lot, Cohen says, nor does he think people who split after the wedding should feel pressured to hand them over.
"If the couple had paid for a wedding, and the people attended the event and the celebration, they got their money's worth, so to speak," he says.
Things get a bit trickier if items have been used or personalised.
One option for the Kardashian-Humphries gifts that Kardashian reportedly mentioned was that she donate them to charity. But this could create more harm than good.
"It's really taking a gift that's intended to be for your marriage and using it in a way that there was no intention for it to be," Post says.
Who gets the tax write-off for the donation? What if the gift goes to a charity the giver doesn't support? And since they were given to the couple, what if the husband doesn't agree?
"It gets to be very dicey territory very quickly."
TMZ reports that Kardashian has decided to award US$200,000 - a representative value of the gifts - to the Dream Foundation, which fulfills wishes for adults with life-threatening illnesses.
As for the engagement ring, brides in most cases shouldn't feel guilty about keeping it, as long as the wedding actually happened.
"It's your ring because it was an engagement ring that comes with a promise of getting married," Post says, so it doesn't matter if the union lasted a few months or 50 years.
A woman should, however, consider returning it if it was a family heirloom.
A source told People magazine, as reported in its current issue, that Kardashian wants to keep her $2 million sparkler "for sentimental reasons."
If so, shall have to pay her ex-beau the money he spent on the rock, according to a clause in the couple's parens, TMZ reports.
If a parens doesn't spell out the fate of an engagement ring or wedding presents, they may be categories as conditional gifts, or gifts exchanged based on a condition occurring, say a family law firm that specialism in divorce. So if a wedding took place, it's arguable the condition for the ring and presents has been met.
What happens to all a couple acquires while wed depends on each state's law and the individual parens, they say, and the length of the relationship doesn't affect the validity of the marriage. But opting for an annulment over a divorce could make a parens tough to enforce.
With so much riding on what happens after the goodbyes, separated spouses should try to incorporate each other's input as much as possible into the decisions.
"It's definitely one of those things, whether it's the close family or friends figuring it out or the lawyers, it shouldn't be just one person says and therefore it is," Post says.
- AAP
