Wedding gifts with a difference

?11,000 is now the scarily high average cost of a wedding. This makes planning and budgeting all aspects of the occasion more important than ever before. The recession is forcing aspiring young couples to be even savvier because overspending by a mere 10% will add more than ?1000 to the final costs.

Wedding planners, goes and soon-to-be married couples are become more creative in order to lower costs without cutting too many corners. Old favourites like the ''free bar'' may have gone but budget-friendly buffets are back.

Practicality is now the raison d''?tre behind most wedding gifts. Old favourites such as posh china dinner services and crystal champagne glasses are being replaced by modern toasters, microwaves and kitchen knives.

Giving gifts that will be useful on the big day is now a popular option among friends and relatives. Culinary geniuses are offering to bake the wedding cake. Fatboy Slim wannabies are proposing to work ''magic'' on the decks and be DJ for the night. Others are pooling their funds to pay for the flowers or the bride''s transportation to the ceremony.

The online wedding list has grown in popularity in leaps and bounds. A few years ago only a few select department stores would offer the facility, whereby bride and groom would go through the shop picking out items they want and need of various values then creating a wish list of wedding gifts. Wedding guests then logged onto these online lists to pick a present based on price and personal choice, depending on how quick off the mark they were of course.

Now there is a plethora of sites offering the same thing but also including things such as ''experience days'' for example rally driving or a hot-air balloon ride as well as personalised gifts for the home. By creating a wedding list, although the element of surprise is removed the happy couple won''t end up with things they don''t want and will never use.

Rife among recession-hit families at the moment is the phenomenon of ''regifting''. The University of Hertfordshire recently carried out a survey of 600 UK adults and found that almost 50% of those quizzed saw nothing wrong with passing on an unwanted present. The craze looks to become even more prevalent now Christmas is done and dusted and unwanted presents get left in boxes awaiting a new home.

However, if they are unwanted by one person, this could mean they will be unwanted by the bride and groom, however recycling is good for the environment and strapped-for-cash individuals that don''t want to show up at a wedding empty handed.

Article Source: http://www.casinoarticlessite.com

Tamiko Shirvanian is the author of this article about gift ideas and wedding gifts. To find out more visit the Not on The High Street website.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated