Wedding Presents you never used

[MargoLivebetter]

Having just moved house again, I realised that I have moved 3 picnic baskets 4 times since I was married 28 years ago and I've never once used them. Some of them, I have used a few of the bits inside them, but I've never ever taken the baskets on a picnic or anywhere else for that matter. They have just moved from garden shed to garage etc. They were not on my gift list, they were just random gifts that people gave us. It made me wonder what other MNers might have in their cupboards that they were given as wedding or other gifts and never used?

@HelpMeGetThrough how on earth are they not open? You absolutely have to open them now for us !

I think we got several sets of steak knives. I definitely remember giving some of them to my mum and sister

We didn’t get many presents, mostly cash. We got some photo frames - I only used one.

A shisha pipe.

I’m not kidding. Dh and I never lived together until just before our wedding because I lived abroad and we were long distance. Dh moved from his uni house after graduation and I moved from another country. So we had literally nothing. Like a pot and a few forks and some plates.

So we had a proper traditional gift registry with plates and towels and linens, because we had nothing. His mate and his girlfriend went to Amsterdam, Casablanca, etc. I don’t even know, somewhere, right before our wedding, so they bought us a massive shisha pipe. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m asthmatic anyway. I’ve never smoked anything in my life. I could really have just done with some bath towels or something. 😂

We were married 29 years ago and still regularly use many of the gifts we received.

Dinner service. We used it this bank holiday
Weather station. In the lounge and still love it
Salad bowl used regularly
Tablecloth used regularly still
Towels still used but are beginning to not look so nice
Napkin rings used when setting up a nice table
Glasses used when having a dinner oarty
Caraffe the same
Painting of where Ingrew up on display and I still love it

Oddest wedding present was wodden goblets. Like a redwine goblet but in wood. They were horrible. Didnt last long we got rid. Used the tray they came on loads though but it eventually broke.

An electric bread knife, complete with crumbs!

A glass tea pot and two glass coffee cups…..when neither of us drink hot drinks 🤯 It wasn’t even a set either.

The gift was from a family member and I can’t wait for them to get married so I can find something just a useless and rubbish to gift them

We had a huge orange lasagne dish (all our crockery and kitchen stuff is blue or white and we already had a pyrex lasagne dish). A huge tray/basket thing that to this day I'm not sure what we were meant to use it for. Mostly people stuck to our list or gave cash/vouchers though, which I'm grateful for. We do still use a lot of it 25 years on.

A silver punch bowl
Placemats with hunting scenes on
Sold them at a carboot the following month

A very large, heavy crystal decanter. I do love wine but never felt the need to decant it, and think if I brought it out when I have friends over for dinner they’d find it a bit bemusing that I’d gone a bit Downton Abbey! So it sits on a shelf getting dusty.

Oh yes @MargoLivebetter the dreaded picnic basket!!

I always wanted a lovely wicker picnic basket (I blame Enid Blyton), and when we got married we were given one but honestly, it was gigantic and weighed a ton empty, let alone with food and drink in it. We never used it.

Other useless articles included 2 decanters, a duvet set that didn't match any of our decor in any way, shape or form and was hideous anyway, some coffee spoons (we already had some), and a set of 6 wine glasses that were so big it would have taken a bottle to fill each one.

We just never got to all of them, put them away, moved house a couple of times and they’ve been in the garage for 20 odd years covered in other stuff.

We got married in the late 90s when a registry at Selfridges or John Lewis was still very much a thing.

Despite this, we got a few random gifts - a lazy Susan, 2 fondue sets and a chocolate one, very posh fish knives, at least 2 crystal decanters and many crystal glasses of all types. We did use the glasses and now have 2 left of about 30.

I just found a box of fancy tumblers, never used. Which is great because I was just about to buy some everyday ones due to breakages and I've decided that using fancy ones every day even if they risk breaking is better then never using them at all.

2 cross stitch pictures with our names and date of wedding (different people made/gave them). Never hung up. Can't bring myself to get rid of them 20 years on as I know they were made with care and love.

Fresh orange juicer and a Georg Foreman grill. Never used either.

Photo frames - there was a reason they weren’t on our registry! Cut glass crystal - just never had the occasion. A silver serving bowl - I know it was something she had and it was a generous gift but really not at all our style and it remained wrapped in its felt bag til I sold it. Someone also gave us a voucher for a night at a posh hotel overseas, but one night - the distance alone we’d need at least two nights minimum there and it was really too expensive for us to do.

Cocktail shaker, wine bottle opener, glass drainer...all alcohol related items. We don't drink.

Fondue set. We may of tried it once to be fair

Set of incredibly plain and heavy glasses and a jug. They've been in the loft for 20 years. One of them is now being used as a vase as it's so bottom heavy it doesn't easily fall over. We had a very careful wedding list which started with "We have most basic stuff (often twice!) as we've been together so long, so please no kitchen stuff or towels". Obviously the guests didn't read it...

I eat off fine English bone china and serve food in fancy chafing dishes. I buy enormous dinner sets for £10 from the local charity shop. It’s surprising hardy and survives the dishwasher and the Belfast sink. I like to think it’s nice that it’s being used rather than kept for best and never used.

A pottery quiche dish - really pretty but I never bake quiches as much as I love them. Went to the charity shop.
Irish coffee glasses - these were bought by one of my oldest friends & I don’t even drink coffee! Charity shop.

Unopened?

why on earth are they unopened?

How did you thank people? Just a generic “thank you for the gift” to everybody?

and you really don’t know what’s in them? That’s crazy, and you might have offended somebody by not properly thanking them. Some of them might have been very thoughtful, personal gifts.

Funny, we were just talking of wedding gifts, how long they last and where they end up, discussed because I was helping my step son’s girlfriend to move and realised when packing her bath towels, that one of them had been a gift from my ex husband’s aunty, 25 years prior!

Waffle maker. Don’t like waffles 🤣

Give it back to them, maybe with a box of value range tea bags.
🤣