Our dearest friends got married last weekend, and we were tickled to pieces. We’ve known them for years and years and when they decided to take the leap, we replied, “Well it’s about time.” These two people belong together, and we wanted to commemorate the start of their journey as a wedded couple in a special way. But, we had a hard time coming up with an appropriate gift to mark the occasion.
The gift they gave us when we got married was thoughtful and unique, and we treasured it. So we wanted to return the sentiment. After much back-and-forthing, we came up with a practical gift that included some special personal touches. Here are the specifics …
- Since our friends were married on the 23rd of October, we wanted to go with the theme “23” (which also happens to be the bride’s favorite number).
- We decided that we would come up with a fun twist on the idea of a recipe box. Instead of including a collection of recipes, we decided to come up with several “recipes” that described things they could do together.
- We came up with a list of their favorite activities and places. They have a favorite restaurant, breakfast cafe, game store, wine shop, etc. We narrowed that list down to our favorites and then bought them a collection of gift certificates in the denomination $23 (and yes, we had a lot of explaining to do as each request was met with a puzzled look and the question, “Did you say twenty-three?”)
- We then used these fabulous (and free!) recipe card templates and created our “recipes”. You can find the templates at Tie that Binds (we featured them here). There was a recipe for “Libations” and one for “A Geeky Game Night”. And there were a few recipes for favorite restaurants and a movie.
- We then filled in the recipe cards with charming copy, and the ingredients included their names and the place for which the gift card was issued.
- To help fill out the recipe box, we also included some favorite family recipes that we’ve collected over the years.
We had so much fun putting this together. Gifts that involve a little love and creativity are the best
… especially when the receivers are two of your favorite people in the world!
We’d love to hear about your creative wedding (or any occasion) gifts in the comments below.
