I’ve just been in my kitchen, being a good wifey (as I had the day off) – don’t let me fool you into thinking I’m the little wifey all the time!
Anyway, I was making the dinner (chilli) and baking a lemon loaf cake (once again, this is not the norm in the Norris household) and as I looked around the kitchen I realised what a lot of memories it held. I’m not talking about memories of good times, but physical memories in form of our wedding gifts. In fact they are littered all over the house, each one a reminder of the day we started a new life together and also each and every guest who wanted to commemorate that day.
So I thought I’d take you thought my all time favourite wedding gifts and see if it inspired you to think a little out of the box and add a bit of cool to your wedding list.
Design Devotee
Before Wedding Magazines overtook my magazine life and filled my house there was only one magazine for me, Living Etc. Filled with gorgeous homes from across the globe that embodied my philosophy on life. Being a fan of old houses, and modern design, I like blending. And having read up on all the modern design classics, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to fill my home with the more reasonably priced items.
Although I’m cheating by including the Ghost Chair which I have owned for several years now, it’s a great example of a modern design classic along with the Anglepoise 1227 which now sits on the RMW desk. Both retailing at around £150 they’re on the pricey side but will be much loved in your home for years to come.
Crystal Clear and Porcelain perfection
Top of everyones traditional gift list is a dinner service and I was no exception. I’ve always loved unpacking my Mums wedding dinner service for parties at home and I wanted my own families legacy. Although we had lived together for soooo long we still had the ‘University’ set of plates which had in turn been hand me downs from my mum – chips ahoy! So I couldn’t decide if I wanted everyday tablewear or a ‘for best’ dinner service and in the end I decided ‘best’ was totally against my whole living style. I’m lucky to have a lot of friends that live locally, we cook together regularly and eat together lots. We bought our dining table to seat 10 and so a dinner service only for best wouldn’t see much love. Thats not to say I didn’t want to keep it nice, so we bought a set of just 4 square plates and bowls for everyday when it’s just the two of us. For when there are more sat round my dinner table than just us two, I chose this casual white range by Sophie Conran for Portmerion.
I’m a little obsessed with crystal and we also didn’t have a full set of beautiful glasses but I found it incredibly difficult to find a design that wasn’t going to look dated in the years to come, or that already didn’t look dated with bad cut glass patterns. In the end I settled on a Vera Wang for Wedgwood design called Duchess, subtle but elegant and I love drinking out of it when I’m feeling particularly happy!
Garden Gadgets
Another emotional throwback was my desire for a garden bench. My Mum bought my Dad one once and I wanted one that I could take from home to home and sit with Pete on one day, with grandchildren running around the garden. Sentimental I know 
One of my favourite things about the little house I live in with Pete is the Garden, and I love eating outside in the summer basking in it’s southwest aspect. So a BBQ was a natural addition and it’s had non-stop use since, being hauled out again in the recent fab weather.
Luxe Living
Pete’s only concession on the gift list…? A Coffee Machine. I argued with him about it as I felt it was too luxurious and too expensive to put on the list but in the end it was bought and we’ve loved using it ever since. In retrospect for those worrying about putting expensive gifts on their list, there will always be people who spend less than you would expect, but most will be astonishingly generous. We put a note on our list acknowledging we didn’t need much and vouchers would be fine towards the more expensive items.
And the other gift I enjoy daily? Our cutlery. A heavy weight set by Robert Stanton in a timeless design, I hope it will be on the dinner table for many years to come and was a very generous gift.
Vintage Favourites
So what lead me to write this whole article? My Kitchen Aid. One of the items we bought with cash and vouchers we received, it sits in pride of place in my kitchen and whips up a lovely lemon cake 
. Iconic yet practical (and therefore for me the very essence of modern design I had lusted after her creamy goodness for years…
Another fun item that I was excited to put on the list was a DAB digital radio. We opted for a Robert’s white solar powered number that works in the garden, instead of these Robert’s revival designs (which I still love) and it gets use in our kitchen while we cook as well as in the garden outside. Domestic Bliss.
All the above items are available on the John Lewis Gift List.
So where will you be having your gift list and what is the item you’ve always wanted to put on yours?
Yours Truly,
Rebecca
xoxo
I love this post! And so appropriate as I am writing the wording re gifts for our invitations today – I think we’re going to ask for vouchers, rather than individual items, and the one thing I really really wanted to put some of the vouchers towards is my very own Kitchen Aid – I have been lusting after one for such a long time, and I literally can’t wait to go and get one!! I also love the dinner service you chose – so classic.
Bizzarely, I made both chilli and a lemon loaf cake yesterday – weird! xxx
Excellent post. So wish we were having a traditional gift list but as we will be living in Saudi Arabia after the wedding, while my H2B completes the project he is working on, it seemed a shame to put any lovely wedding items into storage only to gather. Boo Hoo!
The item which I’d always seen in Peter Jones and thought ‘I’d like that on my wedding list one day…’ was Georg Jensen double swing candle holders and they’re as gorgeous as hoped.
Some dear friends gave us a simple photo frame with a photo of us on our wedding day. It was waiting for us on return from honeymoon and was so lovely to have a photo in a frame immediately and not have to wait all that time until the offical ones came back, and then choosing, which for us took a while, we had a photo up right from day one. It was one of those thoughtful, simple and perfect small gifts in life.
p.s. We chose the Sophie Conran dinner service for exactly the same reasons.
pps Lusting after your Kitchen Aid….
I have been lusting after a Kitchen Aid mixer for so long now (my sister has one but they are a lot cheaper in the USA). About 30 minutes after P proposed (when I was still struggling to comprehend everything) I turned to him and asked “does this mean I can put a kitchenaid mixer on our wedding list”.
I’ve got the Sophie Conran and the same cutlery on our list – glad to hear you use them lots. I think choosing the gift list has been one of the best parts of wedding planning so far – soooo fun! (except for when my fiance accidentally revealed our “secret” honeymoon destination in the middle of John Lewis – oops…)
Hi Abi, Totally understand where you’re coming from – we live overseas, and just not sure how best to approach the gift list…. I think we’ve decided to tell everyone on our invites that we don’t expect gifts, but to tell all of our parents that if people contact them and insist, we will have a small (but perfectly formed) gift list at John Lewis with just a few ‘classics’ which will always be useful to us, like some super nice bed linen, fluffy towels, cutlery etc, and that hopefully won’t take up too much space if needs to be stored…..but would love to hear how other people are doing it?
Am, like Abi, getting gift list envy!
xx
We’re having the Ghost chairs at our wedding! The ones without arms though. Or I should probably rephrase that to ‘I’m’ having them – hub to be thinks I’m insane due to my militant anti-chair-cover stance that led to us hiring actual chairs for the reception…
I really wanted to put a Kitchen Aid on the list, but as generous as people have been I thought that would probably be a step too far. Amazingly though I did put a coffee machine on as a last minute option as I thought it was too pricy, but that was one of the first things to be bought! Our (or again ‘my’ – the boy isn’t interested in dishes) dinner service of choice is the Vera Wang for Wedgewood Platinum range; nobody’s bought anything yet though so they may be candidates for any vouchers that may appear!
We’re putting our gift list together this weekend, a Kitchen Aid is top of the list! Really love your dinner set too, might have to keep an eye out for that one x
Rebecca you have such great taste! We are moving house soon and the two things my boyfriend has stipulated we buy is a BBQ (I can’t really argue as he is south african) and coffee machine! I think I may now add the kitchenaid to our list!
Really great post!
Rachie xo
Yay! I love a bit of interiors/design talk!
Wow to the ghost chairs at your wedding… I’ve seen them before sarah and it looks great.
We put quite a few more expensive items on the list with the rationale that,
1. We really didn’t need lots of cheaper things as we could afford them/had them already, the stuff we really needed and didn’t already have was more expensive, hence why we didn’t have it!
2. I wanted the people who gave us vouchers to know what we would be buying with them and our message on the list was to that effect.
I would really recommend putting individual/interesting items. All the things that went first off our list were the cool items… we ended up buying a lot of the dinner service etc ourselves with vouchers/cash.
Keep your top presents/lusted after interior items coming ladies
xoxo
PS, Gemma, that is hilarious – a girl after my own heart!
Woo we have that coffee machine! currently looking for a new dinner service, I am so picky though it’s been a nightmare – the Vera Wang is luscious…..may have to check the budget!
Am also lusting after a Roberts DAB …. the floral one…..
And now as all you lovely ladies are worshipping the Kitchen Aid I feel I may need one of those too?!
Mr O’Shea is NOT going to be happy
Charlotte xxx
We had ghost chairs at our wedding too – all 120 of them – they looked FAB!!
We also then got the ghost chairs and the kitchen Aid on our wedding list…well, I got a couple of ghost chairs and then I went out and got the rest!
I know exactly what you mean about the house being full of wedding memories, literally everywhere you look in ours has a little gift as a reminder of the day.
xx
Just realised the above post comes from a girl who really didn’t want a “boring traditional” wedding list! haha
OMG, Rebecca I spent most of yesterday arvo perving over vintage food mixers, with the hopes of baking Mr O a fabulous birthday cake this saturday! I’ve decided to wait til after the wedding, as it’s going on our wish list!
Love this post xx
Hey all! Going against the mould here, but is anyone else doing a charity list? We’ve worked at a really underesourced hospital in northern Tanzania and we are going to go back to work there in a few years. We’ve said that if anyone is lovely enough to want to contribute they can give us something towards what we’re bringing over for the hospital – we’re bringing supplies, medicines and equipment and stuff. Anyone else going the same way? xxx
I love this Gift List post! were going for a half and half job as we found older family members want to buy us gifts but friends are happy with giving vouchers! x
Hi Georgia – we did something similar in that we said to guests that if they wanted to give money, they could choose to donate to a charity (we chose one close to our hearts) or to contribute towards our honeymoon. People loved the idea and we raised loads for the charity! Some people said we could choose what to do with the money, so we split it. And we were pretty detailed in explaining what the charity did, so guests knew where their money was going (no admin costs here!)
Hi Georgia, What a wonderful idea, god bless you! We considered doing a charitable gift list, but we fundraise once a month anwway and spend a lot of time and leg work raising money for local charities so have decided to have a travel giftlist, so we can go away and relax for a bit. We work hard so we deserve it
)
We have set up a honeymoon giftlist website-i say we, i mean my man. We paid so much for the trip so hoping our guests will buy us nice meals and cocktails while we’re there!
To all the girls who want a kitchen aid but can’t afford one-do what i do and get your man to mix the batter when your arm gets sore!! -after all, mine eats the majority of the cake when its done and it turns out just as good as when i owned a mixer…
I love seeing what other people have chosen!
I used to work in John Lewis while at uni so we knew our list had to be from there.
We went traditional too with a full dinner service, although it was pricy I dont like to just keep things for best, I say why not use them, so although it wont come up for us 2 on our own, it will when we have friends round. Apparantly im having everyone round for a thai dinner when our list items arrive on the 29th!
We got a Robert Stanton cutlery set too!
Our guests were very generous and we got lots of vouchers which we used to buy the remaining dinner set stuff. There are lots left though so I did drag Graham round to the Kitchen Aid’s on Saturday; im working on convincing him we need it!
I cant wait to see all of our gifts properly; they were supposed to come the Friday after we got back from honeymoon on the Wed but since we were stuck on honeymoon because of the ash cloud, we had to change the date!
p.s love the chair & lamp too; im an architect so did all the design stuff at uni! Im still wanting a mies chair but dont think my budget will ever stretch to it!
Oh meant to add; I agree about putting things on even if you think too much.
We added the same line about vouchers ok to go toward the big stuff etc.
The most expensive thing we put on was a dyson – sounds rubbish but we have always wanted one and cant justify spending that much on a hoover, even though it does have a cool ball – and a family of our relatives bought it together.
Hi Clare, glad to see I’m not the only one wishing and lusting after a more traditional gift list. We have decided to have a Honeymoon giftlist, we have mentioned that whilst we don’t expect any gifts, if people insist then what we would really like is an amazing Honeymoon, something we can apprecaite before starting married life in the desert. That is a great idea to have a small list of classic gifts, may have to run that one past Mr C x
This is great – we’ve got the Sophie Conran crockery, the Robert Welch cutlery and a Kitchenaid mixer (for vouchers)on our list too… and the Expressivo at home! I’m very excitedly monitoring the purchases!!
We’ve also got a list at notonthehighstreet.com – it’s got some really fun unusual pieces.
Jx
I never even bloody knew what a Kitchenaid was until this post, and now, obviously, my life is not complete until I have one! My lack of Kitchenaid is obviously what’s preventing me from making amazing cakes, not my complete lack of talent…
Now, I’m a Kenwood girl at heart but I do agree that the old K’aid is a more stylish kitchen accoutrement (mostly just so I could say ‘accoutrement’!).
I’m loving this post, its so right abut buying the affordable stuff yourself and letting other peeps spend on the beautiful and the extravagent. I love to buy gifts for people that I know they wouldn’t go out and buy for themselves at the weekend.
Am sooooooooo looking forward to the list discussion now!