What is the best wedding gift you have ever recieved (or have given)?

[DisneyCruiser83]

Hey everyone! My brother is getting married at the end of June, and I am stuck as to what to get him and his fiancée. They are having a super simple wedding and don't have a registry.
A little about them, they both graduated with advanced degrees from UCSD in June 2009, and then my brother got a job in MN, so they moved. So, they don't have a lot of money, and they just dramatically changed climates. They like the outdoors. They go on long bike rides, hike and camp out together. They cook, but it's more out of necessity than passion. They don't drink alcohol.
Also, I was trying not to get a 'traditional' wadding gift. I mean, it's my brother, you know? I am going to Europe next month and thought about getting something there, but I am not sure what.
Any ideas will be appreciated!

 

[daisyduck123]

CASH!! It may seem too simple, but let's face it....you can't go wrong with it.

Everyone needs it.

 

[MsLeFever]

What about a few beautiful Christmas ornaments?

 

[pearlieq]

Another vote for cash! There are so many expenses when you're young, getting married, and starting out in life.

The cash our wedding guests gave us did two wonderful things--paid for part of our Disney honeymoon, giving us wonderful memories and a lifelong addiction and it also helped us pay off the credit card bills we had racked up when we were young and dumb.

Disney and financial freedom--I can't think of a better gift we could ever get!

 

[PixieTopaz]

My Mom insisted on buying me a candleabra.At the time I thought it too traditional for me-now I'm so glad she insisted. I love it

It is simple, elegant, pewter 3 taper and its one wedding gift that I still use.

 

[disneyhand]

A gift card to a sporting goods store that has a location close to them.

Or actually purchase something cool for camping, hiking or an outdoor sport they enjoy with a gift receipt just in case.

I knew a similar couple from work years ago that everyone did this for and they loved it!

 

[Disney Doll]

I will tell you 2 of my favorite weddings gifts. I have been married almost 19 years.

1. Christmas ornaments. A whole boxful of really nice ones...not just the box of 12 liek you can get a Target. The kind of ornaments that you would find at a chi-chi gift shop.

2. A mini gas grill, with grill tools. Not something I use everyday, but great to have when I need it. It's about the size of a hibachi. Might be a good idea for your campers! Maybe get them some other "camping eating" utensils too.

 

[okeydokey]

Christmas ornaments to start your own collection!

 

[Mom21]

Expanding on the ornaments that people have suggested. I have this set of ornaments from Germany. They are beautiful and they open to put a small gift into. You could get a set and put different denominations of money just for some fun.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

Cash!


Around here everyone gives money in one form or another (cash, checks, gift cards) for weddings. Actual gifts are generally only given for showers here. I do know a few people that received huge wedding gifts like down payments on houses and cars but that isn't the norm, and thinking about it again it was actually $$ that they received anyway

 

[dis-happy]

Two of my most favored gifts were from antiques stores. One is an antique set of sterling silver coasters and the other is a a set of pewter candlesticks. Both gifts are beautiful and useful!!! Plus, a little off the beaten path for a typical gift.

 

[mjkacmom]

$1000.

 

[drag n' fly]

My Dad paid for and built the deck on the back of our home

 

[DisneyCruiser83]

Wow, these are all really great ideas! I will absolutely give them cash, as that seems to be the most common. Christmas ornaments are a good idea too, I will look for some really nice ones while in Europe. If I can't find any, does anyone have a good website to look for them off-season? The gas grill and sporting good gift card are good ideas too.
Anyone else have other ideas?

 

[PigletsPal2]

Cash is always good. My mother stocked our pantry as a wedding gift. Nice Christmas ornaments from whitehouse.org (they come out w/new ones each year, or you can buy past years separately or in sets of four. WARNING: it's whitehouse.ORG not .COM, which is a pron site! (I learned that by accident, really!)

Queen Colleen

 

[golfgal]

If the live in the Twin Cities area and you are doing the sporting good route, there is a large REI here.

Some of the best wedding gifts we got were simple things like towels, etc. A good set of knives are always great. I like the Christmas ornament idea--especially coming from Europe.

 

[AKL_Megs]

Received?

The downpayment for our house from my parents!

 

[disykat]

What kind of camping do they do? We are tent campers and I love my "chuck box." I got it for Mother's Day. Some people would hate that, but I loved it. It came from a camping supply store and included every thing you need to cook, eat, and do dishes all in an easy to keep clean, sturdy box.


edited to add - I'm taking back this idea! I just looked around and couldn't find anything like it!

 

[wdwfan16]

$$$$$ is the best gift.

 

[bumbershoot]

Well....the money we got for our wedding was totally wasted. Almost none of it came home with us from the honeymoon. So...I have a hard time saying that cash is always the best, because if you're giving it to people who haven't quite figured out their financial lives yet, it won't last long.

What cash did actually come home with us, was then spent on items people didn't buy from our registry.

And therefore, I would say...go from their registry. If others are like us, we only made the registry because everyone and their brother demanded that we do it. And then we spent ages figuring out the best things that we needed. Our registry wasn't perfect, but it was deeply thought out.

So the cash went to buy towels that no one bought (I thought everyone got towels!) etc etc.


However, the most remembered gifts are the cauliflower-shaped soup tureen, even though I'm not sure I've ever made enough soup to use it, and these fabulously bright green candlesticks! Not on our registry, but loved all the same.

So if you can find something absolutely fabulous that you think they would use or love to look at, get that. Otherwise, I would really look to their registry, trying to pick the things that you think really match their personalities (always being on the lookout for the "guy" things that you know were chosen by your brother with the scanner gun, during the times he wasn't scanning his fiancee's bottom, LOL) and that will last, and stand the test of time.

I spent a LONG time disdaining the registry, and I hated creating ours, but I tell ya, we still have and use almost all of the things we got from it, and it's been almost 7 years (the things we don't use were broken).