Unique Wedding Gift Ideas for Friends

Weddings are so romantic. The vows to look after another, the dreamy gaze only a newly married couple has, flowers, champagne, mithai, family, friends, music, dance, lights and a whole lot of love in the air. This becomes even more special if the one getting married is your bestie, your soul sister, your evil twin. This is a big step in her life. Let her know that you are with her every step of the way. Give her a thoughtful wedding gift you know she will love and appreciate. 

The general notion is to believe that a married woman should know how to cook. If your bestie is one of those who has never entered a kitchen in her life and is fretting over this detail, help her out. Book her into a cooking class to learn her husband’s favorite cuisine or how to whip up a 3 course meal. Couple this with some handy kitchenware. Delight her with wedding gifts that range from quirky coasters and chopping boards to elegant wooden trays, dinner sets that are multipurpose and can be used for any occasion and tea sets with pretty pastel prints on it.

Weddings can be extremely stressful especially as D day approaches. Gift your friend a spa voucher to relax her nerves and get her skin glowing. Make it a spa date and spend some quality time together before she steps into her new world.

Are your friend and her husband moving into their own apartment? A thoughtful thing to do is to gift them home decor items they want. You can ask her or if you have seen the house and know her taste buy her something that compliments the home. Cushions, throws and a lamp to create a cosy corner, an idol of lord Ganesha or Krishna with candle votive and scented candles to adorn their temple, clocks, colourful vases and decorative bowls to give character to a room are some of the many wedding gifts you can get the couple. They will be grateful to strike off a few items from their list they don’t have to spend on.

While money may seem as an impersonal gift, a newly married couple can never have too many money envelopes. With expenses mounting in the form of a honeymoon, new house, moving cities or countries in some cases, extra cash is always welcome. If you still want to personalize it, make it fun by including a list of how she could spend the money with her beau.

Go that extra mile, put in that extra buck and make your best friend beam when she unwraps your wedding gift.

Wedding Woes ‘Resolved’

It’s the time of the year to lay out your chiffons and accessories for close inspection. For men, it’s the time to flex their fingers around their tie knots and their wallets. This is after all the onset of the Big Fat Indian Wedding Season! And as we all know, this is something we just don’t take light. It’s the perfect opportunity for showing off and a little bit of socializing too. And we are so good at doing it, sometimes with very little regard for the couple getting married.

We crib about the sweltering heat and really don’t want to put in a lot of efforts scouting around for the perfect gift. Our wardrobe takes priority and somewhere along the line we throw in a crystal piece in our shopping baskets and have it gift wrapped. Don’t you think it’s time to actually do it a little different now? And here’s how easy different can be. You don’t have to travel a great distance to accomplish this. All you need to do is power up your mean machine and you have a host of options at your fingertips.

I’d suggest, start out by sorting out your invitations. Have a close look and figure out your budgets according to the kind of relationship you have with the person getting married. Once you have that sorted out the road ahead is pretty simple.

You can try out the new genre of quirky gifts these days. They bring an instant smile to the recipient’s face and would be just right for a couple starting out on a new journey together. In the initial time together they’ll put in efforts to give their house the makeover they want. It’s a place of pride for them as they’ll be inviting friends for parties. So, give them something they can show off. Quirky gifts often give options for customizing. So, you can even have your entire gang’s picture embossed on a cushion cover with funny messages and the couple will be more than happy to look at it and remember the good old times (don’t we all just love going down that lane time and again?).

If you are apprehensive about quirky (and your relationship doesn’t allow you to really do quirky), you can choose from the various other categories available. A wedding gift can either be for personal use or something for the couple (like home decor). For personal use you have options such as perfumes, grooming kits, cosmetics and make-up and jewelry. For the couple, you can try something gifting experiences (send them on a spa sessions, or a fine dining experience), home decor or something new like combination baskets of flowers and candles (these are packaged beautifully.

The best part about shopping for gifts online is the heatstroke that you avoid. Wait! This is not the best part. The best part is the option of easy exchange. Instead of waiting for the last minute to order your gift and taking it along with you to join the growing pile at the venue, order your gift well in advance and have it delivered directly to the bride or the groom’s house. Let them have a look at it and decide if they really want it (It’s their big day after all and they should certainly be allowed an opinion about their gifts). Now here’s really the best part. In case, they aren't happy with the gift, they can exchange it. So, instead of you receiving the amount for the gift you purchased, you can opt for the option wherein, the recipient will get store credit and buy a gift of their choice online. So, it really is time to try the different (and easy), this wedding season.