The BEST Wedding Gifts

One of the most popular blog posts I’ve shared on PBF was a post I wrote that featured a bunch of bridesmaid gift ideas. It was such a fun one to put together and it’s definitely no secret that I love writing about anything wedding related on the blog.

Today I’m excited to share a blog post with you guys that I put together with a little help from some of my best girlfriends…

The Best Wedding Gifts

I reached out to a handful of my friends and asked them to share a little bit about the wedding gifts they received in the past. I posed the following questions to them:

• What was the most creative/thoughtful wedding gift you received?
• What wedding gift do you find yourself using the most often?
• What is one item you registered for that you ended up not using much at all?
• What is one gift you didn’t expect to use or love that ended up being one of your favorites?
• Stick to the registry: Yay or nay?

(Big thanks to all of my girlfriends who weighed in! I am not sharing their names with their answers in this post for privacy purposes since blogging has taught me that this is a very, very small world and I wanted them to feel like they could be totally honest with their answers without fear of who may, by some slim chance, see this blog post!)

Ryan and I usually stick to the registry when it comes to giving wedding gifts, but I’ve also strayed a few times for a close friend when I was pretty sure I had a great gift idea in mind that would be a little more personal and might mean something special to them.

If you’d like to weigh in, I’d love to hear your answers to these wedding gift questions in the comments section of this post!

• My dad gave my husband his favorite classical guitar which is a pretty big deal in our family!
• A homemade wreath for our front door along with a personalized doormat.
• At my bridal shower, I received a gold necklace with our wedding date engraved in Roman numerals on a thin bar. Love love love it!

• We received a high quality SLR camera – Perfect for documenting our honeymoon and life as husband and wife together!
• Art with our wedding date.
• Since we didn’t really register for the wedding, any of the donations we received for the Humane Society and local food bank were the most thoughtful.
• I loved the gift you gave me with our wedding picture framed in the middle and the maps from where we are from framed on either side.
• A beautiful glass decorative plate from Tiffany’s engraved with our wedding invitation. It was such a surprise and was so thoughtful. I love that I will get to see my wedding invitation in our home forever now.

• Our blender, towels and every day silverware.
• Definitely our Wusthof classic chef’s knife.
• Cutco knife set! It’s amazing!
• Definitely kitchen stuff from our registry.
• Our toaster (I never knew that you could have an amazing toaster!) and lamps (we registered for a lot of lamps – haha)!
• Our Wusthof knives and our pans – without a doubt!

• Serve ware. I’m happy to have it when I need it, but that’s not very often.
• Extra pans… I use most of the same ones all the time.
• A mandolin slicer.
• A salad spinner.
• A cupcake carrier. Why did I register for this!? Ha!
• A panini press. We probably use it twice a year if we’re lucky.

• Pyrex glass storage containers. We use them every day!
• Dyson vacuum for wood floors. I expected to use it, but I did not expect to love it so much! (Professing love for a vacuum makes me feel so old!)
• A clothes rack on wheels.
• Snowshoes!
• A wine aerator. It makes such a difference!
• A cake platter. I have used it an embarrassing amount of times. Plus, since we received it before our wedding and loved it so much, it was the cake stand we used for our wedding cake!

• I loved getting gifts from my registry, but I usually gift cash. Not sure why I do that…
• Yay!!! Registry gifts are always a winner.
• We got many of our gifts from our registry but we loved things people got us that weren’t on there like Christmas stocking hangers and home décor.
• Yay! But money is always a very appreciated gift as well. We were able to pay for our honeymoon with the money we received. We also have a bit leftover and are hoping to put it toward a new couch that we need.
• Mostly “Yay!” but I liked getting random, creative gifts as well!
• It depends… Some of the BEST gifts I received were not on our registries (Tiffany plate, amazing cook books, necklaces, thoughtful quote books). I guess these gifts were more geared towards gifts I received at my bridal shower, but the gifts that seemed like people took the time to think of something that spoke to me or my personality were my favorite. In this case, receiving something off the registry for my shower was fun. However, off the registry gifts for the wedding seem to be much more random (more like random house things we probably will never use), so regarding wedding gifts, unless it is something personalized, stick to the registry. Our registry was full of items we would love for our home, but couldn’t see ourselves actually splurging on!
• Yay! Though a non-registry gift can be amazing, 95 percent of the time they are just a little too “out there.” I’d definitely stay away from gifting art. I’ve heard horror stories about strange paintings, statues, decorative vases, etc.!

Questions of the Afternoon

• When it comes to wedding gifts, do you usually stick to the registry or veer off in favor of something else?

And feel free to weigh in on the main questions from this blog post, too! Here’s a quick list for easy reference:

• What was the most creative/thoughtful wedding gift you received?
• What wedding gift do you find yourself using the most often?
• What is one item you registered for that you ended up not using much at all?
• What is one gift you didn’t expect to use or love that ended up being one of your favorites?
• Stick to the registry: Yay or nay?