Wedding gift list: Big ticket gifting

Adding investment pieces – and heirloom quality objects – to your wedding gift list makes perfect sense, and the specialist gift list companies make it easy for guests to go in as a group to treat you

For many couples, there’s a certain embarrassment when it comes to adding lavish items to the wedding gift list. Of course, it is good manners not to expect your guests (some of whom may have spent a fortune getting to your wedding) to then fork out on a really expensive item, but it does make perfect sense to include a few big-ticket items alongside more affordable objects and experiences.

One good reason to do this is that some of your guests may choose to spend a bit more because this is such a significant moment in your lives. The other is that some of your gift givers – especially close family – may prefer to help you with the expensive business of making a new home together.

This is particularly true of parents, who remember the days when the gift list was designed to help couples, often without even a toaster to call their own, furnish their property. As one father of the bride told us: “I would rather buy a substantial gift that I know will be used and help make their home together comfortable”.

Enter the sofa, the dining table or the fine china dinner service. These are all big-ticket gifts, but provided you pick wisely and get a design you won’t grow out of then they are wonderful investments by someone else in your new lives that you can use and enjoy for years to come.

Gifting as groups

Even your friends who you wouldn’t expect to run to a Graham and Green armchair or Tom Dixon table lamp by themselves may, in fact, prefer to join together and choose the investment purchase route, even if this is for a small but choice object such as a designer lamp. After all, if it’s something really gorgeous and covetable they know you will use it often and remember them fondly for giving it.

The gift list companies make clubbing together easy to organise. At Prezola, there’s a new group gifting option for many items over £80 so that individuals can add as little or as much as they like to help fund the purchase. If the item you’ve selected doesn’t hit target, you have the option to pay the remainder yourself. At The Wedding Shop, friends have the option to go into branches at Selfridges and The Wedding Gallery so they can see the items before they select the one they all want to put money towards.

A wedding gift list is always about balance, so alongside the big-ticket items you’ll want to include more affordable objects that still mean a lot to you, but don’t leave off the investment pieces you love because of embarrassment. Your friends and family may just surprise you with their generosity.