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Players wanting to marry any of the bachelorettes of Stardew Valley have six options to choose from. Each of these characters is quite different from one another with interesting background stories, their own unique gifts, as well as the perks they provide once they actually move into the household. Here’s all of them, ranked from worst to best.
Updated on October 8, 2021, by Anastasia Maillot: With Concerned Ape having announced a new game project, it’s unlikely Stardew Valley will receive massive updates or a heap of additional content in the future. This also means that the bachelorettes of Pelican Town will most likely remain largely the same.
To better measure the utility of each spouse, an “after marriage” part has been added to help players figure out which spouse best suits them long-term. Spouses are fantastic for easily getting expensive items and gifts, but not all bachelorettes are as generous as others, or as easy to seduce.
6 Haley
Haley doesn’t seem to have much depth to her character and comes across as superficial. However, through her interest in photography and the consecutive heart events, she starts to show a more complex side. In fact, it might just be the lack of proper parenting that has made her a bit snobby, given that her parents are out of the house permanently and just travel the world.
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Haley’s loved gifts aren’t easy to find. She loves coconuts, fruit salad, pink cake, and sunflowers. In the first year, unless the player’s very efficient, these are rare items. Thankfully, her liked gift is a daffodil, so collecting a bunch of them is a good idea while they’re in season.
Haley After Marriage
After marriage, some of the best items Haley can offer most commonly to the player include hashbrowns (+1 farming) and pancakes (+2 foraging). Otherwise, the foods she offers are pretty basic items, making her the bachelorette with the least amount of reward. Rainy days and nights might yield some better gifts like maple bars (+1 farming, fishing, and mining) and eggplant parmesan (+1 mining and +2 defense).
Haley’s room in the farmhouse after marriage is a cute tropical theme, which fits with her love of coconuts and fruit salad. Her most common gifts, however, don’t make her a worthwhile spouse to go for out of all the bachelorettes.
5 Leah
Leah is the artistic one of all the bachelorettes and lives by herself just outside of Marnie’s farm. She’s a sculptor and painter looking for a breakthrough but doesn’t have the confidence to go forward. The player can encourage her to pursue her interests either by setting up an art show in Pelican Town or by starting an online shop to sell her pieces. There’s also the matter of her jealous ex-partner Kel, who makes an appearance later on.
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Aside from having a rewarding storyline, she’s also easy to please with gifts. Granted, her loved gifts can be hard to acquire: goat cheese, poppyseed muffins, salad, stir fry, truffles, vegetable medley, and wine. Wine is the easiest way to win her over early on. On the bright side, she has a long list of liked gifts that includes most seasonal foraged items.
Leah After Marriage
Unfortunately, the gifts that she offers once married aren’t that interesting, especially if the player has converted their cave into a mushroom one. Leah will mostly give mushrooms on rainy mornings. Otherwise, she’ll gift other common foraged items like horseradish, leek, and dandelions.
The best item she gives is coffee, which boosts speed by +1. Her room in the farmhouse becomes an artist’s studio with paint buckets and a canvas.
4 Maru
Maru is the daughter of Demetrius and Robin. She has a huge interest in science and medicine, which has her working at Harvey’s clinic as well. Although initially, her storyline doesn’t seem anything special, Maru’s working on something big. Eventually, she invents a highly sentient robot, which results in an emotional scene with Demetrius who has been suspicious of the player’s character all this time.
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Maru’s loved gifts are expensive and require the player to reach a high level in the mines. Her favorites include battery packs, cauliflower, cheese cauliflower, diamonds, gold bars, iridium bars, miner’s treat, pepper poppers, rhubarb pie, and strawberries. Her liked gifts are slightly more reasonable: copper bars, iron bars, oak resin, pine tar, and quartz, the last one being the easiest to find. The hard part is that many of her gifts are usually something the player needs for their own project.
Maru After Marriage
On the bright side, Maru’s own gifts after marriage aren’t too bad. She might give a warp totem to the farm, fertilizer, or bombs. Crab cakes (+1 speed and +1 defense) and fried mushrooms (+2 attack) are the best foods she can offer.
Still, given how expensive it can be to efficiently level up a friendship with her, it doesn’t seem like a worthy trade. Maru’s chambers on the farm have a distinct space theme with a telescope, computers, and other machinery.
3 Emily
Emily’s easy to find on most nights working at the saloon, which is why getting close to her is no challenge. She’s a unique and quirky character, with an interest in dreams, energies, and meditation. Her storyline isn’t anything too dramatic and mostly consists of her sending cooking recipes to the player, which is a nice change of pace. At the same time, it can feel a bit lackluster. However, the first heart scene where the player enters her dreams, as well as the clothing therapy scene really showcase Emily’s uplifting personality.
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Her loved gifts aren’t easy, as many of them are gems found in mines that are often better off sold for gold. Amethysts, aquamarines, emeralds, jades, rubies, and topazes are her favorites, but she’ll also accept cloth, survival burgers, and wool. Luckily, her liked gifts are easier: quartz and daffodils.
Emily After Marriage
Emily’s own gifts after marriage include all things related to cloth and wool and even duck feathers. The best food items she can give are bean hotpot (+30 maximum energy, +32 magnetism) and coffee (+1 speed), and as a bonus, she might even give omni geodes, which are excellent as they can contain a variety of resources once brought to Clint.
Overall, she’s a pretty decent choice for marriage, and the trade between the gifts is somewhat equal. Emily’s room in the farmhouse features a parrot and a table with some sewing equipment, with colors and patterns perfectly reflecting her originality.
2 Penny
Penny lives together in a trailer with her mother Pam, and knowing what Pam is like, it’s easy to see why Penny wants to work harder and organize her life. She may not have huge life ambitions herself, but she comes across as very mature and down to earth. Her storyline doesn’t have major twists and turns or huge drama, but it’s still a nice peek into her mind and her struggles. It’s even more heartbreaking to know that Penny hates all things alcohol, most likely due to Pam’s drinking habits.
Penny’s favorite gifts are among the hardest to get in the game. She loves tom kha soup, sandfish, roots platter, red plate, poppyseed muffins, poppies, melons, emeralds, and diamonds. Melons are probably the easiest to get in the first year. However, her liked gifts are extremely easy to find first thing in the spring of the first year. Just grab a bunch of dandelions and leeks, and Penny should be won over soon enough.
Penny After Marriage
Penny’s own gifts after marriage are among the best because she has a high chance of giving a geode or mixed seeds. Moreover, she offers a bunch of meals with special effects such as hashbrowns (+1 farming), pancakes (+2 foraging), crispy bass (+64 magnetism), and even fried eel (+1 luck).
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Penny’s room in the farmhouse turns into a small reading room of sorts, with bookshelves and a table with pillows to sit at. Overall, she’s among the top bachelorettes due to her incredible gifts.
1 Abigail
Abigail might be considered a bit of a weirdo by a lot of players, but there’s a reason why. She’s also seen as the “best girl” of Stardew Valley. Not only is she iconic, but she also has her own unique style and strong personality. Her story is that of a girl struggling to be recognized for her inner strength, and she desperately wants to show how tough she is. Her interests include fighting with a sword, video games, the flute, and using a spirit board. As Pierre’s daughter, she seems to feel out of place in the face of her parents’ expectations.
Abigail is usually at the saloon during Friday evenings. Her loved gifts are pretty expensive: spicy eel, pumpkin, pufferfish, chocolate cake, blackberry cobbler, and amethyst. Luckily, quartz, which she’s famous for wanting to “eat,” is a liked gift of hers that’s extremely easy to come across.
Abigail After Marriage
Abigail as a married partner will give very valuable gifts, including solar essence and void essence, as well as bombs. Since these are monster drops and harder to farm for, she actually has great utility as a spouse. The best meals she can offer are tom kha soup (+2 farming, +30 maximum energy), trout soup (+1 fishing), chowder (+1 fishing), lobster bisque (+3 fishing, +50 maximum energy), fried mushroom (+2 attack), and crab cakes (+1 speed, +1 defense).
Abigail’s new room in the farmhouse will have a drum set, a console, a sword, and a TV, along with what looks to be a hamster cage. All in all, she’s just a great bachelorette with how much she gives back in the end, the trade-off making her the best bachelorette in the game.
Stardew Valley was released on February 26, 2016, and is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, Android, and iOS.
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