As some of you may know our lovely friend Katrina is getting married this year so as a wise old married woman (ha!) I thought I might impart some wedding related experience with you.
I could talk about the dress, the flowers or any of the crafty things I made but instead I might surprise you by talking about presents.
Yes. The gifts you receive as the bride and groom.
In England I don’t think we really talk about this very much, perhaps I’m committing a huge faux pas but whatever. In the last few years it’s become more popular to register a wedding gift list and if you’re planning to have one please do a better job than us.
I’ll be honest, I feel really weird about gift lists. I don’t even like it much when someone writes a list for their birthday or Christmas. I understand it’s a sensible thing to do and it helps out your friends and family who might be a bit stuck on what to buy but there’s just something about it that makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
So, in the run up to our wedding it felt weird when lots of people started asking us what we wanted and needed and whether we would have a list. This question honestly stressed me out a lot. So, we talked about it together and with friends and decided that it would make sense to have a list to at least give people an idea of what we needed.
We had lived together for three years before we got married so we already had a lot of home ware stuff but some was very basic that we’d inherited along the way or bought straight after uni’.
OK. So, making a wedding gift list is so easy- you rock up at the department store and register and then they send you off with scanners to aim at barcodes of what you want. BUT to me it felt SO WEIRD!! Instead of running around like a crazy person like you see in movies I felt awkward that we were literally making a wish-list that people would actually be buying for us. So, we stayed very sensible and chose new pan sets, bedding, knives, kettle, toaster etc
I got in so much trouble for this. My aunts and Godmother rang me to tell me off for not picking pretty things or more gift like items so I should have just gone for it.
Bespoke map art £325
So, if you choose to have a list bear in mind that it’s OK to have one. I have since been to two weddings since where they had fun gift lists and felt a bit silly for not being braver and putting more extravagant/fun/novelty things on ours. As much as we loved getting new serving spoons it might not have been as fun for the person who bought them I guess.
Customised wooden hooks £22
My mum got us monogrammed dressing gowns as she thought our list was boring and they were so funny. Having my new initials on a dressing gown was pretty hilarious and walking about our flat in our matching gowns extended the honeymoon feeling. Maybe we’re just idiots. (probably)
Personalised dressing gown
So, the lesson to be learnt here is if you have a list make sure you don’t feel embarrassed by it; choose things you would really like. Otherwise, don’t worry about having one and let people surprise you!
Friendship Birds £9.50
Would/did you have a wedding gift list? Did you feel a bit embarrassed about it or did you go all out? What would your dream wedding present be?
Blog:www.skinandblisterblog.com
Twitter: @skinblisterblog
Facebook: Skin and Blister
Instagram: annawrites
Hello Cotton: Skin and Blister
I committed probably an even more awkward wedding request by for-going an gift list and asking all of our guests for money! My in-laws were a bit shocked when I said we weren't going for a gift list, because I didn't really want or need any of the regular boring household stuff you usually get. We're renting for one thing and already have everything we need provided for us, and its probably going to be a few years before we buy our own home and settle down so putting houseware into storage would of been a big fuss.
ReplyDeleteInstead we managed to amount a really generous honeymoon fund via our guests kind gifts and used it to have the best honeymoon ever, something we couldn't of afforded usually.