S/O What memorable, non-$ wedding gift(s) did you receive?

[fortwildernessishome]

What a fun thread!!

I have been married for 31 years. I didn't register for anything. Back then the only people that registered, did so for dishware etc., and I had no desire for anything fancy.

I still use a ton of gifts that I received from both my shower and wedding. A favorite wedding gift was a card table!! We still use it to play games as well as at family holidays!

We received a set of steak knives that we still, 31 years later, use daily. Also a set of Corelle dishes we use daily. We received many other gifts, but those have been my favorite! We had a table at our reception for gifts. My parents brought everything to their house and when we got back from our honeymoon, we went there to open the gifts and cards with money.

The only crazy wedding gift we received was this MASSIVE glass clock!! You would have had to live in an mansion to have had a place to hang it!!!! We lived in a small apartment!

Times have changed though in 31 years later! We went to a cousins daughters wedding a month ago and there were no gifts, just cards with I assume cash or checks.

 

[lorimay]

24 years ago DH and I got married and honeymooned at WDW.
I have two memories of non-monetary (well, kind of) gifts, sorry for the long post:

When we checked in the Cast Member came back over to us, saying something like,
"I'm so sorry Mr. & Mrs., we need to UPGRADE you to a suite, are you ok with that?"
LOL! Of course we were and she knew we would be - no extra charge, it was their Pixie Dust for us!
We got to our new room and it was fantastic! We stayed at the Contemporary, BTW, with a deal from AAA.
We really were on a budget, but the resort was still affordable.
So, the next day we come back to our room after our first day in the parks,
to find a signed picture of M & M with a small bottle of champagne (2 glasses worth).

Then, a few nights later we were eating dinner (I can't remember where, I think it was the restaurant in the Contemporary).
A couple walks by our table, and DH recognizes the husband and catches his eye and says hello.
He was actually a friend of DH's brother, but they remembered each other and there were introductions and congratulations all around.
When we asked the waitress later for the check, she smiled and said it was all taken care of, including the tip, WOW!

We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon in 1987, one morning we were having breakfast, we struck up a conversation with the people at the next table. They were in their 40's or so and so friendly, when we said we were on our honeymoon they said they had honeymooned there also. When the check came the man grabbed it and said best of luck to you both...... it was so sweet.

I had a friend who opened one of her wedding gifts and it was some kind of clay cooking vessel, I think it may be used in Indian cooking. But there was a wedding card inside the box made out to the couple who gave it to them.........

 

[Nora03]

Been married for 48 years and we received all gifts, no money. We got everything we needed - dishes, glasses, cutlery, ten sets of sheets, six blankets, appliances, etc. , etc. The two things that were interesting gifts were a set of cutlery from Thailand, from a cousin of DH’s who was a professor and teaching in Thailand at that time for a year, and a carved squirrel on a stand from his rich aunt and uncle. It was very strange looking as it looked like someone had carved it, but it seemed unfinished and we think it was part of an ashtray stand (non smokers). Couldn’t understand why they would give us such an unusual, and cheap looking gift. It’s still in the back of a cupboard, never used. I’ve been tempted to give it away but think it would be interesting to take it to Antiques Roadshow to see if it has any meaning, or value.

 

[dotfurio]

My great aunt and uncle sent us a pair of sandpaintings. They're beautiful.

 

[Cheetie]

Married twenty-five years and got a mix of gifts and cash. We had a fairly formal reception as that was the norm around here. So our most weirdly memorable gift was a tiny basket that contained three blue washcloths from one of DH’s cousins. (Our bathroom colors were green and white). And they were not new wash cloths.

The most touching gift was the slip for my dress. My step-mom made it and added a beaded blue heart to the hem for my “something blue.”

 

[Disney_Alli]

We asked for no gifts at all as we had a destination wedding and already shared a home. We received some anyway included a "bed in a bag" set in browns and greens... for a single bed...

 

[barkley]

zombie apocalypse bath towels from a family member known to be cheap and a fan of army surplus auction sales. the other relatives were aghast he would give these as a wedding gift but it made no difference to us young newlyweds we were just thrilled to have 6 matching nice thick towels.

welllllllll.....................i gotta tell you, i've been married going on 28 years and the last of those towels just left the house a few years ago. they lasted FOREVER-even at least one decade as heavily used shop towels. all the naysayers.....the towels outlived them.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Pots and pans from my Nana that had belonged to her and some were passed down from her grandmother to her. How was I to know this also signaled the end of one era and beginning of another? No more calling her to ask what time I should come for a holiday meal; now she called me.

 

[TheFloatingBear]

I'm really enjoying this thread! We've been married 15 years - some of our more memorable/favorite wedding gifts...

My mom had passed away a couple of years before I married, and my siblings and my father wrapped up my parent's wedding china as a gift to me and my husband.

My oldest sister gave me a framed wall hanging of the ocean that's actually a quilt - beautiful. She also made my garter - she quilted it out of my mom's old flannel housecoats. Sounds weird but I loved having something of my mom's on my wedding day. My niece wore it as "something borrowed" on her wedding day this past July.

My aunt is an artist and my cousins gave me one of her paintings. I love it and I adore my aunt, although it struck me as kind of funny that it was from my cousins and not my aunt!

My former co-worker who also catered my rehearsal dinner gave me a serving set (large fork and spoon). They are practical and just a tiny bit fancy and I use them all the time.

I lived in Texas during my twenties and was friendly with an older couple and their family, then I moved back to New England but kept in touch. They couldn't attend my wedding but sent a silver sugar and cream set that they had received as a wedding gift.

 

[ronandannette]

Forty two years ago, my former mother-in-law gave us a hand-held mixer. It's memorable because I still use it regularly. Several years ago, I bought a new one for about $15, figuring this one was due to go any time-probably in the middle of me baking something. Yet, the original wedding gift keeps on working!

My sister is still using the Sunbeam mixer she got as a shower gift and their 50th Anniversary is next month! I think she once told me they sold for about $6.00 dollars then. They sure don't make 'em like that anymore.

 

[Darcy03231]

A rechargeable flashlight given to us by one of my ex's father's friends. Flashlight has lasted much longer than the marriage and I still think fondly of that gentleman every time the power goes out!

 

[Breezy_Carol]

This is a great thread. Just fun.

We've been married 34 years. Also more gifts than $$. I know exactly what we used the money for -- a microwave, a basement freezer that we still use, and a camcorder.

Non-money gifts that stand out are a tool box we still use, and an ice bucket. Only use it occasionally but I left the card in it to always remember the giver.

 

[star72232]

An ice bucket with our names and the date engraved on it. I love it!

 

[NotUrsula]

The Pig Platter. I suppose it sounds like a white elephant gift but it isn't; it is a beautiful oval hand-made pewter platter in the shape of a sleeping pig. It was given to us by a former boss of mine who always gave very lovely and unique gifts. We keep it on the kitchen wall when not in use, but use it all time for serving grilled meats.

We wake up every single morning to the radio of a Sony Dream Machine alarm clock that was a wedding gift.

The good china and silverplate serving pieces that we use for celebratory meals are all from our wedding. As so many of the givers have now passed on, there is a little feeling of having them still with us for special family meals when we take out those bowls and dishes.

The true white elephant gifts that we got were all Precious Moments figurines: 6 of them from various aunts and family friends of DH. I don't do breakable knick-knacks of any kind in my house because we have cats, and certainly not ones that depict pastel-coloured children with bizarrely large eyes. The only places we could find to exchange them were Hallmark Stores, so for the first 10 years we were married, every gift we ever gave anyone was wrapped in paper and ribbons from the stash we got in exchange for those little porcelain kewpie dolls. (The same people who gave us the figurines later gave us PM Christmas tree ornaments the years that each of our children were born. Those are personalized, and they are still in their boxes at the bottom of the Xmas tree crate. Again, this home contains cats.)

 

[CarolAnn856]

This is a great thread. Just fun.

We've been married 34 years. Also more gifts than $$. I know exactly what we used the money for -- a microwave, a basement freezer that we still use, and a camcorder.

Non-money gifts that stand out are a tool box we still use, and an ice bucket. Only use it occasionally but I left the card in it to always remember the giver.

We were the first of our group to get married, and we received mostly gifts, not money. While my husband happliy opened boxes of china placesettings and sheets and stuff like that, I was definitely the more excited of the two over those, lol.

Fast forward two years to the next wedding of our friends, we bought a nice toolbox and some basic Craftsman tools as their gift. We had known the groom since freshman year of college, so we thought it would be fun getting them something like that.

 

[disneyeveryyear]

We will be married 31 years next week, and also received more gifts than $. One of the most memorable was a box of beautiful Christmas ornaments. As our first Christmas came 2 months later, it was so nice to have some ornaments that weren't glass balls. I still see them every year as I decorate the tree and think of them.

I did recently just pitch a kitchen towel that was received as a shower gift from a cousin.

 

[crazylady]

We recieved a kitchen aide mixer that I love. I'd never used a stand mixer before. I still think of my friend every time I use it.

I also love all of the monogramed barware we received. We've been married for 17 years.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We've been married 10 years. We had 4 showers and a fairly large wedding (about 200 guests), so we got LOTS of gifts both tangible and money.

My best friend from high school gave us pot holders and silicon spatulas from Williams Sonoma. This was just when the silicon pieces were beginning to be popular and were still fairly expensive. Those spatulas were my absolute favorite. My DH accidentally threw one of them away and it got taken by the garbage men before we realized what happened (I would have dug through all our trash to save that spatula). I was so upset because I loved that spatula so much that he went to Williams Sonoma and bought me a new one.

Most memorable because it was weird was from my strange, black sheep of the family uncle. We opened the gift and it was an electric can opener. When we first opened it, I didn't think much about it - it was just Proctor Silex brand, so not a particularly expensive gift. I'm not a huge fan of electric can opener, so I was going to return it to Wal-Mart. For some reason, I opened the box before we took it back to Wal-Mart and it was an old, used, crusted in food can opener in the box. I assume someone got a new one and put their old one in the new box and my Uncle got it either from someone's garbage or a yard sale because he is the cheapest person on the planet. I just threw it away and sent him a nice thank you note about the lovely can opener.

 

[Jaime4004]

My favorite wedding gift was our wedding cake, made by an aunt. It was one of those ginormous cakes, with tiers and flowers. She did a great job. 2nd favorite was a wine bottle given by DH's coworker. His son did glass etching (there may be a better term for it) and etched in a a pic castle taken from our wedding invite, along with our names, the date, etc. I still have it 16 years later.

 

[NYCgrrl]

We recieved a kitchen aide mixer that I love. I'd never used a stand mixer before. I still think of my friend every time I use it.

I also love all of the monogramed barware we received. We've been married for 17 years.

There's a good chance my Nana would have given me her Hobart stand mixer (precursor to the KitchenAid) if only I hadn't left a spoon in the bowl before I turned it on. It bent the mixing blades(? cant think of the right word) and since they were no longer being produced that was the end of that

She still made yeast rolls (for my 16th birthday I ask for and received a pan of her potato yeast rolls for my very own. Yipeee!) and light as a feather cakes without it but tended to look at me out of the corner of her eyes and shake her head......
Oh and for the record to date, I've nevah broken another kitchen appliance in such a manner. See Nana- I learned!