The Best Off-The-Registry Wedding Gifts

These days wedding gift-giving has been made pretty easy thanks to registries listing every single thing the couple (okay, bride-to-be) wants. A nice thought, but for most of us (the lazy ones), we’ve been too busy brushing up on our sweet-ass dance moves for the reception and Insta-Stalking the single Bridesmaids to bother with buying a gift. By the time we log onto the wedding site, the only thing left to buy is a washing machine (way too aggressive) and “his and her” hand towels and we ain’t gonna do that to our boy. Shopping for a present for someone’s special day should be more personal than say, a juicer or 10 wine glasses. Thankfully, for you we’ve compiled a shopping list of “off-the-registry” gift ideas so you won’t be remembered as the chump who bought newlyweds their third espresso machine or that panini press that got immediately returned.

 

Pop Art Portrait
Wedding photos are nice, but the happy couple is going to just slap those in a book and bury it under the coffee table. Instead, give those newlyweds their 15 minutes of fame that will last a lifetime with a pop art portrait for their walls. Professionally created by an award-winning team of illustrators, design artists and expert framers, this perfect gift for the Selfie Generation product uses classic pop art screen-print techniques to create custom canvas prints from your very own photographs. You can choose from iconic Warholian squares to Shepard Fairey-style Propaganda street art to Lichtenstein-style comic panels.

Honeymoon Contributions
Godfathers and grandparents come from a simpler time, when fruits and vegetables were eaten, not extracted. They know that the best gift of all is cold, hard cash. No blenders or 1200 count bed sheets. That’s for amateurs. Despite the convenience, handing over an envelope of cash doesn’t have a ton of thought behind it but the modern equivalent, honeymoon funds, does. With sites like these, you can contribute dollar amounts to the couple’s upcoming honeymoon or even purchase specific activity packages like snorkeling, dinner, or a day trip.

Wine of the Month Club
They say the first year of marriage can be the toughest, so why not ease the happy couple’s pain with the mediator of all problems — booze. A monthly wine club membership will give them something to look forward to every first of the month. Sure, they might be arguing about closet space or no more boy’s nights out, but one thing they can both agree on is a good Cabernet (if not, all hope is lost). This gift that keeps on giving will force them to explore wine and taste selections from a range of regions. There are plenty of wine clubs out there, but if you’re a novice yourself, you can’t go wrong with the Gold Medal Wine Club. They’ve been in business for over a quarter of a century and offer consistent, high-level quality wines at exceptional prices with an emphasis on small-production, family-owned or individually-owned wineries whose wines are not easily found in the marketplace. The club offers half a dozen different membership options, but our favorite is the International Series (starts at $75 and for an additional $24.95 includes a selection of gourmet food finds from the featured region). Bottles arrive wrapped in swanky organza bags inside an artist-commissioned box lid too.

Vermont Butcher Block
You might have caught this essential kitchen tool on ABC’s Shark Tank a couple seasons ago. The American-made cutting boards are the real deal, coming in a vast array of high quality and gorgeous hardwoods (Walnut, Cherry, Maple, Birch), mostly grown in Bernie Sanders country. If you’ve ever used an edge-grain butcher block to cut your meat or chop your vegetables you know there’s a huge difference between hardwood and plastic or even bamboo. These handcrafted cooking aids can also double as a nice keepsake, which you can engrave with the couple’s initials and the wedding date (so he will never forget). These solid investments start at about $40 and will sadly last longer than most marriages.