The multimodal expression of laughter has been studied in various fields, with previous work focused on the characterization of the visual component during laughter. We investigate here the interaction between laughter and the gestures preceding it, considering that communicative gestures usually occur before their associated verbal message. Employing two German datasets of dyadic interactions, one containing narratives and the other dialogues, we analysed the distribution of head gestures preceding laughter. The results showed high individual variation in the production of head gestures, but also an effect of speech style and of addressee characteristics. Narratives contained more gestures and, in these materials, the familiarity between interlocutors decreased gesture incidence. Examining also the link between laughter and the corresponding co-gestures, we observed a significant effect of gesture presence on laughter form.