Unique wedding gifts to surprise your guests
When it comes to your destination wedding gifts, you want to make your guests feel spoiled and taken care of but also not add more weight or worries about their luggage on the way back home. To surprise your family and friends and to be truly unique, the wedding gifts have to be consistent with the theme of your wedding ceremony and your personal taste. Yet, there are some universal ideas I want to share with you today.
Choose a local gift to use on the spot
My first advice is to spoil your guests with something local that they can eat or drink on the spot. It really makes a difference when after a long flight they will find a welcome drink, fruits basket or a box of chocolate (depending on the season), in a nice package, that waits for them in the room, together with a “thank you” note.
Tuscany has many treats that you could use as a gift, from typical biscuits, like Cantucci and Ricciarelli, to truffles or olive oil.
There are some secrets though…
Prefer gifts quality over quantity
When you get your gift with a nice packaging, consider half of the job done. A luxury small box of something your guest will need during the stay or a nicely arranged welcome drink might create a better impression than a huge basket of local products in a standard packaging.
Just keep in mind that it is so important to give something they can really use and not something useless that will represent only a waste of money for you and will make the guests leave the favor because they don’t have room in their luggage for something they don’t really like or need.
Use your imagination when it comes to gifts. Years after, your guests will remember how surprised and glad they were when they received the gift, not the size of it.
This leads us to another tip…
Think about gifts’ usability
As we said before, Tuscany is famous for wine, olive oil, handcrafted, and painted ceramics. All of these are difficult to handle in case of a destination wedding. If your guests want to bring them back home, bottled wine and oil are impossible to carry as hand luggage and quite difficult to manage as checked luggage. The truffle smell is not something you want to spread all over your suitcase either. We want your guests to feel relaxed and spoiled, to keep great memories of your wedding experience, not the other way around!
This is why I recommend to always consider usability: a small olive oil can, a souvenir version bottle of limoncello or grappa or a tiny pot are easier to handle and are still an amazing idea your family and friends can keep long after your wedding!
Prepare some gadgets to prevent any hitch
This part is not quite about gifts but yet it is very important to create an all-around experience that will make your guests say yours was the best wedding they have ever attended.
Attention to detail is the key. This is why my advice is to prepare gadgets for every situation, from a pashmina in case they are cold in the evening, to comfy shoes in case their feet hurt from too much dancing. If your wedding ceremony is in a garden or in a city center, heel stoppers will be a very much appreciated detail to save their shoes from the mud or from scratches caused by the stone pavements.
Finding a scented candle in the bathroom can contribute to a relaxed atmosphere. Other important details are body spray, pins, mosquito spray, sanitary pads in the bathroom, or even Maalox (a medicine for indigestion). If your wedding ceremony is in the summer, fans will be very popular among guests.
Another must-have idea is to prepare a copy of the itinerary with the time schedule to add to your welcome gift. It has to be cohesive with the rest of your stationery and it should contain all useful details your guest might need: how to reach the main sightseeing spots, how to call a taxi, until what time the local transportation runs and so on.
Remember, we want to create an experience around your wedding. In ten or twenty years your guests won’t remember the details, but they will always keep in mind the warm memory of how they felt taken care of and this is what really makes a difference!
What would you like to receive as a gift from Tuscany? Comment below!