Getting married: The door gifts

I think I’m a practical person. I like practical things. When it comes to door gifts, I appreciate getting things that I can use, instead of things that are merely for decoration.

Door gifts I like

The door gift that I like the most is this silver heart-shaped casket, embellished with crystals that I received from a wedding of a friend, that I now use to store my rings.

I don’t really appreciate bunga telur, but I know Baby Boomers do. My parents arrange the bunga telur that they receive from different wedding into a bouquet, inside a vase T.T To them, a bunga telur carries more weight than other types of door gifts, when it comes to sentimental value.

Deciding on the door gifts

For my receptions, I thought of coming up with more unconventional door gift ideas, but I gave up thinking of something cool and planned to play safe. My mum and I agreed that we shall give our guests drops of Hershey’s inside a small container.

But before I got the chance to finalize on the concept of the door gift, my mum told me that she had already commissioned her friend for the job -_-‘ and although my presentation slide of the door gift concept consisted of glass jars with a metal lid, decorated with paper doilies and ribbons, my mum told me that they’ve decided that we’d be using tin jars decorated with flowers T.T

By then, I can only decide on the colors and types of the flowers and ribbons, so I kept on pestering my mum about the progress until she handed me her friend’s number, telling me to contact her friend directly. So from then on, I pestered my mum’s friend heh.

At last, we came to an agreement.

The outcome

Here are my super simple door gifts:

Since the akad nikah reception revolves around ivory, guests brought home a gold round tin, with its lid, wrapped with ivory ribbon and decorated with ivory flowers. We placed them on a table, where guests could pick them up.

The main reception revolved around icy blue, so guests brought home a silver square tin with its lid, wrapped with dark blue ribbon and icy blue flowers. The door gifts were placed on each seat at the hall.

 

For the honored guests who would be part of the merenjis ceremony for the main reception (who are usually the “wiser” generations), a bunga telur with silver net, silver ribbons and icy blue flowers with glitters. They’re sooo nice, that some were stolen from the VIP table -_-‘

Lessons learned

To know what you want and make decisions before other people make decisions for you.

Kidding!

The lesson I learned is… to not overthink on door gifts. Make them simple and practical. Go online for ideas. In fact, shop online! There are plenty sites selling cool door gift packaging.

Even when you’ve got your own ideas, don’t discard your parents’ opinions. If they want to leverage on their contacts, let them — it makes them happy to be able to hire someone they know and strengthen relationships and the person who’s lending a hand for your wedding most likely will do a good job. Know when to intervene, though.