Gift guides4 min read
What to give when forty other people are buying off the same list — including the cord of three strands, and what to write in the card.
They have a registry. It has a stand mixer on it, and forty other people are looking at the same list.
If you want to give something that is not a kitchen appliance — something that acknowledges what they actually did on that day — this is how to choose it.
Give off the registry if you are close to them. Give from it if you are not.
That sounds blunt, but it is how couples experience it. A gift chosen for them by someone who knows them is a different object from a gift chosen efficiently. A gift chosen off-registry by someone who does not know them is usually a thing they quietly rehome.
If you are a parent, a sibling, in the wedding party, or a close friend — go off registry. Everyone else, buy the towels. They genuinely need the towels.
If you have been to a Christian wedding recently you may have seen a braiding ceremony: three cords woven together during the service. It comes from Ecclesiastes 4:12 — a threefold cord is not quickly broken — and the three strands are usually read as the couple and God.
It has become one of the few genuinely modern Christian wedding traditions, and it makes for a good gift because the couple already has the association.
The Cord of Three Strands wall piece is American hardwood, sixteen inches across. The ten-inch plaque is the smaller version for a couple who have not yet worked out where anything goes.
For the bride specifically, the gold-tone necklace carries the same verse on a nineteen-millimetre engraved charm — a good option if you want the reference without the wall space.
Most wedding gifts end up on a wall or a shelf, so it is worth thinking about which wall.
The Overlay Wedding Cross is the most substantial piece here — silver and gold inlay, notched for hanging. It is the sort of thing given by parents or a group of friends going in together.
The Beautiful Marriage print is eighteen by twenty-four inches, which is genuinely large. Worth knowing before you buy it for a couple moving into a one-bedroom flat.
For something smaller, the handcrafted stained glass cross is five and a half inches and does not need a nail — it sits on a sill and does the work with light instead.
The Our Marriage Prayer frame takes a four by six photo, which means it will hold a wedding photograph they have not chosen yet. That is a feature: the gift completes itself later.
Wall pieces get hung and then stop being noticed. A devotional gets opened on a Tuesday in year three, which is when a marriage gift is more use.
Choosing You runs fifty-two weeks — one a week for the first year, which is the year they will need it. Mr & Mrs is the daily version for a couple who would rather have a short thing every morning than a long thing on Sundays.
The NIV Couples’ Devotional Bible is the more traditional choice, and the one most likely to still be in the house in twenty years.
If you want to give them something each rather than something joint, the paired prayer books work well: 199 Prayers for My Wife in saddle tan, and 199 Prayers for My Husband in raspberry red.
Give both, one to each. The point is not the books; it is that each of them is being prayed for by the other, and now has something that says so.
For the groom on the morning itself, the pen and keyring set is the kind of thing that gets used rather than displayed.
If you are reading this from the other side — planning your own wedding — favours are the one place where buying in quantity makes sense.
The Cord of Three Strands keychains carry the verse your guests will have just heard read out, which is better than a sugared almond. The olive wood comfort crosses are made in Bethlehem and small enough to fit a place setting.
Wedding cards are harder than they look because the obvious things have all been said at the reception.
Avoid advice. Nobody married for two hours needs to be told marriage takes work, and it always reads as though you are describing your own.
Write instead about what you saw. Something they could not see from where they were standing: how he looked when the doors opened, what her father did during the vows, which hymn the back of the room actually sang.
They will have photographs of the day. They will not have anyone else’s account of it.
The date does not move, and a gift arriving the week after is a gift arriving during the least convenient week of their year.
Order ten days out. If it is going to the venue rather than to them, check first — most couples would rather take it home than carry it to a hotel at midnight.