What was the best wedding gift you received?

[user50316]

A friend of mine is getting married in a few weeks so looking for gift ideas.
They don't have a gift registry and they've been together for years so already have things they need for a house etc!
Would rather give a gift as opposed to money.

So, what was the best thing you received for your wedding day?

Laptrays
Peg Bag
Brilliant kitchen scissors

One of our best gifts was a year's subscription to a travel magazine. 6 years down the line we're still getting it and every day it arrives gives me a little burst of happiness.

Upgrade of our hotel honeymoon room

Most useless: some hideous and insanely expensive champagne flutes and a cricket bat 🤔. Most of it totally ghastly

My cousin got us a gift voucher for snap fish which we used to print a wedding photo book.

Best crockery, not my fave design but useful, also we got a great tablecloth for the garden.

We married 27 years ago. One thing we asked for was a food warmer, ie one of those mini ones you put tealights in. It's the one thing we still have and use when we get takeaways as we don't just pile everything on our plates, and the food is kept warm until we go back for more.

If the couple like wine, then another option could be a wine cooler. I bought one for DH for our 25th and it's great as it keeps wine cool and you haven't got to go back to fridge half way through a meal (we liked our wine chillled).

We didn't ask for presents but my in-laws gave us a honeymoon.

Vouchers for activities -made for a fun first year of married life as we booked them

A beautiful photo of the children (was a second marriage/blended family)

We didn't have a gift list or make any requests, I enjoyed seeing what people selected.

Not a wedding gift, but one I bought for my husband. It was a painting by Celia Duncan. I told her about our first meeting in Arundel, and she created a painting around that. It's fantastic! Online Store | Celia Duncan Artworks (celiaduncan-artworks.co.uk)
😀

A small painting done by my mums friend - of our wedding venue (not one available to the public, only a very narrow number of people) - which she did the morning of the event. Absolutely beautiful, but she is an artist!

Otherwise the bottle of champagne from my uncle which came with a champagne cork to reseal fizzy bottles. Used that for years!

We have a wooden fruit bowl and a crystal dessert bowl for making trifles or fruit salads. I use them every day and 30 years later I still love them both and they look as good as new. When a friend got married recently I bought big bowls for cooking with.

We were bought lots of dates which we absolutely loved... theatre voucher, afternoon tea vouchers, restaurant vouchers, one for star gazing. Absolutely amazing.

We got a case of wine which was lovely
alsk good pans which we’ve used for nearly 3 decades - like £100 a pan German indestructible ones.

There's two because I've been married twice..

No 1 - a set of steak knives, we use them around once a week, so handy.

No 2 - a bright orange cast iron Le Creuset casserole dish. Pressed into constant service in the winter months, and I wouldn't be without it.

I got a beautiful kitchen clock from DH’s dads cousin. 35 years on and I still look at it every day, and remember the lovely woman who chose it for me.

I also got a beautiful Stuart Crystal bowl which I put fairy lights in 🙄 Probably not the original intention, but I like it.

And DHs aunt gave me a watercolour of the place we got married - I have several of her paintings, but this was lovely - along with a big fat cheque…

An apple tree for the garden - its still producing apples many years later. Not such a good present if you are likely to move house though.

We didn't have a list and had quite a lot of gifts of money which was really useful.
We also got lots of gifts of meal or cinema gift cards. We had 2 very young DC and then COVID struck so lots of them went to waste unfortunately as they then expired. We also got some one4all gift cards, total waste, awful things!
2 lovely physical gifts we got were a picnic rucksack which came with all the cutlery, plates etc and is a cool bag in the main part. That gets lots of use for days out, picnics, camping etc. And we also got a cake plate with a glass dome which was just so surprising and not 'us' but actually we've ended up using it loads for the kids baking etc.

What!! Why?!! How bizarre (and ungrateful?)
Get them opened!

Dualit 4 slice toaster. Have replaced the timer a couple of times but that's the trick, you can replace pretty much all of it.

I'd have said Le Creuset too but when I started my first job I cleared my overdraft and then spent loads on it, and it's still going 30y later and yes, I started with a casserole!

A pair of White Company bath robes. Used constantly and last for years.

Yeah, this and companies go bust etc… things like Red Letter Days seem like easy and nice gifts but are a nightmare to actually book and expire quickly!

Cash and a note in the card, or a “let me know when you want to go and I’ll book” much better.

Nice “physical” gift ideas… rose plant (there are “wedding day” type ones), or cash/voucher (ok on this occasion!) to get wedding bouquet preserved into resin ornament etc (you get a physical thing in the end!), or a great picnic backpack.

A pair of red rose bushes from my grandparents still going strong 35 yrs later

A complete set of kitchen knives. They’ve kept DH in check for nearly 20 years. ;)

My Kenwood.

My sister and her best friend bought it together. I still love it 17 years later.