H&C&H

I started this subject on someone else's thread, but have been advised to give it a life of it's own! Thank you to all who responded on Xmas Day thread.

But anyway, we are getting married before hopefully moving to Australia. Other than money (which I'm sure we will get anyway) does anyone have any ideas about what to put on our wedding gift list so that we don't have to ship lots of stuff over. Some family I know want to buy us particular presents.

Or is it better, as someone suggested, to ask for stuff which will remind us of our families when we use it in our new home (i think I do actually like this idea but am scared by the price of shipping! we are not taking over any furniture so don't want a big unit, or even a share of a big unit - just a few suitcases-worth really).

Thank you to all.

chrispy

Hi,
We are in the same situation, getting married in a couple of weeks and hoping to go out to Perth early next year. We are going to ship household goods so the weight of presents is not so much of an issue. You could ask people to contribute to your honeymoon (i presume you will be having one) or get money to buy things when you are there. One thing given the complaints on this board about how cold Perth was and how poor the houses are for insulation was to ask someone for an elcectric blanket! Never had one before but seems like a good idea for winter

Cheers



Good luck with the wedding and move

Wendy

How about using someone like these http://www.wishlist.com.au/

People could buy things from there for your wedding and then you could get it delivered over here. Of course it does depend on how close together your wedding is to actually moving here, but if it's pretty close together it would save you shipping it all plus you'd have some nice stuff to get you going when you get here.

Downies

Some people and family coming to our leaving do have asked if they could buy us pressies as they know we will more than likely never get married (been together over 10 years and dont see the need), some of the suggestions I forwarded was:

Local postcards with scenes of where we come from as I like to make collages or frame the really nice ones and dot them around the home - I have done this for years for the Norwegian branch of the family.

Small items of local interest - touristy stuff, map books (illustrated guide to britains coast line) etc

Some suggestions for you - If they are wanting to splash out - I suggest they buy vouchers for an Australian department store so you can shop for stuff when you land - be careful though as I read one post saying some Oz vouchers expire

Pamper day - so you can relax for a day after everything after the wedding has settled down and before you fly away.

Good luggage set

If you are shipping out a small amount you might want to consider asking for towels and bedding sets as I am sure you know you can never have enough - especially if you are upgrading from small UK place to 5 bed two bath bungalow with pool! Beach towels also. They dont weigh too much and can ship them in a teachest.

Tickets to local venues you want to do before you leave.

Hope the suggestions inspire

Paula

foxall22

Hi,

My husband and I are not well off and couldn't have had a honeymoon, so instead of presents we went to a travel agent that did a honeymoon scheme and people contributed vouchers via the agent (so they didn't have to declare how much people paid - you just get a list of names for your thank you list).

Another 2 friends of mine did a more noble thing and asked for presents towards a charity scheme. I think Oxfam does a popular one, so you buy a place in the 3rd world some mozzie nets, or a goat, or a well... etc.

Good luck,
Gemma

Fionast

Why don't you contact some video & or photography companies and see if you can set up an account for guests to pay as much as they want towards the video.

Then send a note out with the invites saying that as you are emmigrating you don't want presents but if they feel they want to give you something they could donate towards a video of the day and everyone you care about to take with you.

I know some companies do a diary room kind of thing where guests get to leave you a message.

Fiona

Caroline G

We married before leaving and got a lovely luggage set.

We also got John Lewis vouchers as they could be used for food shopping as well as things in their store.

But what about a digital camera or cam recorder?

Mandy&Cliff

We married before we came over after a long time of ensuring that we knew what we were getting with each other . With invites, enclosed a don`t buy us gifts ditty, written by a word smith friend (he likes to think he is!) It was funny and generally took the piss out of us...With the sweeper, amongst other bits and bobs that after X amount of years together we didn`t need any items just a bloody good time with friends and family. In retrospect, an idea I liked and wished we should have done, was to ask guests to contribute to planting individual trees for each and every person that joined us on the day. The OH thought I wanted to go off hugging trees for evermore Liked the symbolism of something growing and continuing on....

danbex85

Hi,
We got married in July this year and we have got our flights to brissy booked for 28th december. We also aren't taking any furniture or anything bulky and didn't really want to be carrying heavy wedding presents with us. when we sent our invites out we put a note inside saying that as we are moving to oz we don't really want any wedding presents and would much rather prefer money so that we can buy things in Oz to start a new home. when we get to oz we are going to make a note of everything that we buy with the wedding money and put it all in a pile and take a photo of it all. We then plan to send a copy of the photo to everyone who contributed saying thanks for all of this!
People don't always like giving money as presents but if you show them what you bought with the money then they will appreciate it a lot.

Hope that this helps

Dan & Bex

flip

Chatting about something similar and a few friends said "bloody cheek" about the honeymoon idea, I'd been happy to do similar myself, contributing to a friend's central heating so it's a very personal thing.

Some ideas for gifts might be pictures, prints, of places or people you love in England. You can always frame them when you come over. My friends from my daughter's school arranged an artist to draw the spot we always sat for a chat and they gave me the money to have it framed over here. Another set of mates photographed all the houses and our gorgeous neighbours in the street and put them in an album with messages - I cried a little.

Alternatively there's always technology that can link you to them depending on their generosity or closeness if they club together, eg. A laptop, digital camera, video camera, webcam - all for communicating back home. Or people could treat you to tickets for events once you're here.

Friends gave the kids dollars as gifts, it sort of felt more special to them than giving sterling.

Finally, if you're sentimental remember to get a visitors book for them to write messages in when they come to the wedding. It'll be handy to pack but have special memories.

suzimc

Congratulations to both posters who have said they are getting married soon!

This is pretty much the same as what we did. We also said that if people didn't want to give us money they could get us a gift and we would not be offended. All in all most people gave us money, I thinkthe grand total of actual gifts consisted of an ornament, a CD, some chocolates, a guest book for people to sign on the day, a matching photo album, and a book on living and working in the USA. It worked out for the best really.

We also found a photographer who would do digital on a disk only, which was great as we left the country 7 days after we got married and didn't know how we were going to getaround that one otherwise.

Our situation was extra complicated because we knew we would be spending some time in America before finally settling in Oz, so the last thing we wanted to do was cart a load of possessions from one country to another.