Please Welcome Guest Blogger, Annie Authier, from the blog “Thriftfulness”. Look there for crafty and thrifty gift ideas that require care, though not necessarily a lot of money or skill. If you’re penniless, careless, dull, and/or lazy and you’ve still managed to get yourself invited to a dinner party, baby shower, or other engagement requiring presents with your presence, you’re really in the right place.
To Do before I Do
Raise your hand if you’re in a wedding this summer…there are a lot of you aren’t there? I thought so. If you’re in your twenties or thirties, you’ve probably got a lot of friends getting married and being asked to stand up in their wedding is an honor. But these days, with expensive bridesmaids dresses and tuxedos, multiple wedding showers, and destination bachelor/bachelorette parties in Vegas, your wallet is empty before you even glimpse at the registry.
If you can’t afford an expensive gift for the bride and groom, try to supplement by giving them something extra thoughtful to help them prepare for the big day. My favorite gift to give a bride is the “To Do Before I Do” notepad. Brides are off their rockers in those weeks before their big moment and often need to put all that chaos in some sort of order. This booklet is not only suuuper cute, but serves as a place she can keep all her to-do lists and is small enough to fit into her purse or wallet.
Here’s how to make it:
Gather some colored paper and/or blank postcards. I always seem to have these things in the house, but if you don’t they are easy to find and inexpensive. Cut them all to size and then fold them into a little booklet.
Sew it together by poking three holes in the crease of the booklet (top, middle and bottom). Take a needle and a string that is knotted at the end and pull the string through the middle hole, then through the top hole, top hole to the bottom hole, and then back through the middle. Tie a tiny knot to hold it into place.
Decorate if you like and title the booklet “To Do Before I Do”. You’re done! The bride will appreciate your acknowledgment of her hectic schedule and have a purse-size planner to jot down all of the errands she’s going to make you run for her.
A few other ideas to show the couple you care even if you’re out of cash:
- Check out books from the library about wedding speeches and look through them with the bride or groom to help them hone their vows or toasts.
- At the wedding shower, offer to be the person who writes down who gave each gift (trust me, no one else will) and, while you’re penning names, write down inspiring words or, better yet, gossip about all of the gift-givers in the margins so the couple will have something to laugh at while filling out all those tedious thank you cards after the wedding.
- Make up a little baggie of things they might forget to bring on their wedding day. For the bride: a nail file, an alternate lipstick, some Shout wipes for last minutes stains, and a pretty vintage hanky. For the groom: a lint roller, a cologne sample, talcum powder for sweaty palms, and maaaybe a little bottle of booze…for the nerves.
- Take a notebook and have members at the rehearsal dinner write down their favorite memories of the happy couple or have married folks jot down the one piece of advice they wish they had on their own wedding day. Present it to the couple before their nuptials when anxiety may be running high.
- At the wedding, designate yourself Awkward Moment Monitor and make it your duty to stop all things awkward like wedding toasts from the exes, booty-shaking bridesmaids, and falling grandmothers.
Give the happy couple these trinkets and tokens and they will be so consumed with your thoughtfulness, they won’t even mind that your name is on the plastic popcorn bowl wrapped in a paper sack at the gift table.
To read more of Annie’s blog, click here.
