Summer means long days, warm nights, beach trips, thunderstorms, and a veritable font of summer weddings. In the last few weeks alone I have had several friends announce the dates of their celebrations, which left me thinking about who the heck my plus one is going to be, but also about potential wedding gifts. Classically, a couple creates gift registries at a few retailers–department stores, furniture chains, amazon–so their guests know what they want and don’t all end up buying them the same thing. As useful as an industrial strength blender is, you don’t want four of them.
But I know nowadays that couples, especially younger couples, have abandoned the gift registry. Gifts have gotten a little more spontaneous, a little less traditional, less treated like a painful and compulsory duty. Here are just a couple suggestions for thoughtful, interesting gifts.
Chances are the happy couple is going to end up with a juicer, right? A fruit bowl is just practical. But all joking aside, Uttermost has a range of unique and cool knick knacks, along with more utilitarian accents like bowls and flatware. However, when picking out your gift keep in mind that your friends will probably not initially have a ton of space, since they are going to probably have many other gifts, so I would not go much larger than the bowl above.
Shop Vases, Bowls and Trays:
Bookends are a great choice for a wedding gift, because guess what your friends are probably going to have a good few of? Books. Almost all of my friends’ houses are overflowing with books. Bookends are great example of a practical yet whimsical gift. And there are so many to choose from, from the plain, to the ornamental, to the downright odd.
Shop Bookends:
If you do decide you want to go the more traditional route with your gifts, silverware, flatware and serving dishes are all long and proud gifts in wedding history. Still, you can probably figure something a little more interesting than a blender or a set of good china. These cake pedestals in varying sizes are a cool idea. Don’t let a gift’s practicality turn you off, either. For instance: tupperware. Not the most glamorous of gifts, but a heck of a lot more useful than a set of fancy plates your friends will only use a few times a year.
Shop Serving Plates:
Chances are good the new couple is going to have a couch, and throw pillows are a fun, versatile, and altogether safe gift. They are a great way to add little pops of color to a room, they’re light, and they won’t break the bank. There are so many to choose from, so chances are good you could find one that matches your friends’ taste.
Shop Decorative Throw Pillows:
Okay, maybe not every single one of your friends would appreciate a colorful, stylized, four foot tall painting of a parrot, but you catch my drift. Wall art is an especially good choice for a gift as it’s highly customizable and you can get something you know your friends will appreciate. It might not seem like the most obvious of wedding gifts, but let me tell you, there is nothing more depressing than a new house or apartment with blank walls. Art is one of the best ways to make a house feel lived-in.
Shop Wall Art:
Wedding tradition dictates you bring a gift, but when those choices are also limited by tradition, it can become a stressful experience. Nowadays weddings are evolving, so why not our concepts of gifts as well?
