Bridal or Shower Ideas to Guarantee Your Wedding Gift Will Not Be a Duplicate

Your friends is getting married. You could get them a toaster, but last year when you gave another group of friends a toaster, so did four other people. This time, you want to give them a unique wedding gift that they will not soon forget, but how can you guarantee that you are not duplicating what others are giving? What special gift can you give that shows that you were thinking specifically about this couple and something that by the time your friends' first anniversary comes along, your gift will still be remembered as something from the heart? Here are five tips on how your wedding gift will be unique and memorable.

One of the ways that I have seen to guarantee that you don't give a gift that isn't appreciated by the blessed couple comes when they put their wedding on their own website where they tell their entire wedding story on the website. If they have a registry on the site where they tell you what they want to receive, you can help them get it.

My son and his now-wife requested that friends and family, in lieu of gifts, contribute to their honeymoon expenses.

You might be able to provide a service that can be used during the wedding. If you are a florist, a photographer, a cake decorator, a makeup artist, a hairstylist, or a wedding planner, offer your friend your services as your wedding gift. If you can't afford to foot the whole service, offer a deep discount. Just be sure to offer it early in the planning process. The best time to offer is right after you find out that the couple is getting married. Many couples would be grateful for the offer for getting your services at deep discounts. However, be ready for the couple to refuse the offer of your assistance in the couple's wedding plans. It is, after all, their wedding not yours.

Let's say you don't have one of the skills mentioned, but you offer some other service. If the couple is a client of yours, offer your service for free for a specific length of time or a specific number of visits. For instance, if you are the bride's usual hairdresser but for the wedding, the bride's Aunt Ruth from out of town is going to do the bride's hair on the day of the wedding, you could offer a couple of certificates to do her hair for a later date. Additional services might include pedicures, manicures, massages, auto care (like oil changes), gift certificates to your restaurant, offering to clean their house a couple of times or performing some other service that the couple would see as valuable to them.

Don't consider this as simply a way of getting out of paying for a gift for a couple. You need to be certain that the service that you are giving is something of value to the couple and has monetary value as well. For instance, if you were a realtor, even if the couple was planning to buy a house, you would not consider taking them on a tour of houses as your wedding gift to them. That's a service that is given away for free and is just cheap. If however, you helped them find the house of their dreams and paid some of the closing costs out of your own pocket so they didn't have to, that would be a gift they would long remember.

Do you do a craft that the couple absolutely loves? My mother crochets and makes different things for the home and gives them away as gifts. If you know how to crochet or knit, you can make unique wedding gifts like potholders, doilies, afghans, blankets, and dishcloths. Many people love these gifts because they were handcrafted just for them in colors to match their home's décor.

If you're a quilter, you could make a wall hanging or quilt that matches the couple's décor. If you do carpentry, metal crafting, or wood crafting, these also translate into much-loved wedding gifts. Imagine how pleased the couple might be with a plaque that they can hang outside their door which says "Welcome to the (Married name of Couple) Home Established (Day of Wedding)" or a beautifully handcrafted picture frame for their wedding photo.

It's not as difficult these days to self-publish a book and cookbooks are among the easiest. A very handy craft that you could produce could be a family cookbook that combines the couple's family's recipes into one cookbook. Using a print-on-demand publisher, you could reasonably produce one copy of the cookbook. A family cookbook like that would certainly be a one-of-a-kind gift that would be treasured for years.

Sometimes you can put a number of little things together that are humorous together that will not only be practical but also offers a little humor to the gift-opening experience. For instance, a number of years ago, my parents gave my cousin a set of steak knives and a box of bandages as a gift. The couple loved it, because not only did they need those items, but they also got a good laugh in the process.

You could, if you know that the couple wants to have children right away, give a box of disposable diapers and some Onesies.

With a little imagination, you too can add a humorous situation to a couple's wedding gift-opening experience.

If you simply don't have a skill, or craft, or can't think of any humorous idea, ask the couple what stores contain their wish lists. These wishlists are called registries. If you don't know about registries, you go to the store where the couple has their registry and the store has a list of the exact items in style and brand of items that the couple wants. You purchase an item from that list, and the store then sells you that item and takes the item off the list. This way, the couple doesn't get half a dozen toasters and three blenders that they have to return for refunds.

If they don't have a registry with a store, ask the couple if they have a wishlist on Amazon. If they don't have one, you can always give them an Amazon gift card to choose what they want.

Also, if the couple is not registered at any stores, and you don't know what to get them, find out what stores they frequent for housewares and get gift certificates for that store, put them into a humorous or sentimental wedding card, and sign it. This is always a good option when you're buying something at the last minute.

Memorable wedding gifts do not need to break the bank, and your gift can remind the couple that you cared enough to consider what they wanted and needed to make their wedding day even better. I have given you a lot of options here, you can either use the one's I suggest or create some new ideas of your own. When the day comes when you are toasting bride and groom future, you'll have given a gift that they will remember as being from your heart.