The Best Wedding Gift May Be the Most Useful One
Thinking Outside the Box(es) Makes This Gift A Winner
Buying that perfect wedding gift that will be appreciated for a lifetime is every gift-giver’s goal, but there is so much to choose from these days. No one wants to be the one that gave someone that hi-tech non-stick appliance, and a few years later visiting different friends in the same rental townhouse, found it sitting on a shelf in the basement. Of course it’s a good opportunity to claim it back, but let’s face it, the message has been sent: You're a poor gift giver.
Finding The Right Item Isn’t Always Easy
Buying gift items for a new couple setting up housekeeping can’t be totally frivolous or the giver faces doing friends a disservice if it doesn’t match anything else they have. Buying at stores that use registries help, but even then, that gift will likely be just one component of that special set the young couple has chosen. And it’s unlikely they will later be having friends for dinner and be pointing out the individual plates from Grace and John, Kevin, and Kira, and the cream and sugar set from Devon. Once everything is unpacked, who will remember which was a gift from whom?
It's wise to avoid giving modern art, paintings in gaudy frames, huge vases, and giant ceramic statues of penguins or pit bulls, even to a couple whose taste along those lines is fairly certain. It is still generally something they would likely want to buy themselves. And on those occasions when such things might be a special request from one party, if the other member of the couple was unaware of it, a few years later it could be branded a “monstrosity” and end up on the sidewalk or in the dumpster. That could make a well-meaning gift giver pretty gloomy.
Practical Does the Trick
Practical gifts are often overlooked choices because a wedding is thought of as a time for creative, unique items, novel housewares, decorative sheet sets, and coffee makers. Even being the best friend of one member of the pair, personal items like cell phones, handbags, and ipods should be ruled out lest the one that doesn’t get to use it be offended; those choices can be kept for the shower or some other private setting..
But there is a gift that both parties will be happy about for years into the future, and chances are good that they will tell you so often. When the ceremony and the reception are over, the cake has been eaten, and the dancing is done, at some point all that is left to do is the laborious part, gathering up the gifts and preparing to change and flee happily off on the honeymoon. And while many couples can assign the gift gathering to friends and family, it isn’t always an option.
When it falls to the bride and groom, eager to be in each other’s arms in their little hideaway, they recognize that the gifts must be respected as the important signs of love from their family and friends and carefully placed in back seats and trunks and transported home. So, with their hugs come the happy couple’s last words before they drive off, “What a wonderful gift! I can’t imagine what we would have done without it!”. The last gift to be packed up and the first to be pulled out, will be your shiny new folding hand truck, with the now somewhat crumpled bow.
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Wrapped Wedding Gift
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