Love, Texas Style: Gifts of Gratitude

Love, Texas Style: Gifts of Gratitude

June 15th, 2009 @ 1:01 pm by Mrs. Lemonade

As our guests were enjoying their cupcakes, Mr L. and I decided it was a good time to start doling out the gifts we had prepared for our parents and bridal party.

We had spent months trying to decide what to gift our parents, as collectively, they are the types of people who are notoriously difficult to shop for. We picked a loose theme of “buy them things they love but might not spring for themselves” and set a budget of roughly $100 per parent.

The dads ended up with some of their favorite things – booze.

We hooked Mr. L’s dad up with a bottle of one of his favorite wines, and my dad was the lucky recipient of a bottle of his spirit of choice, The Macallan. We boxed each up in a Kraft paper wine box adorned with navy ribbon and a custom name tag.

My FMIL was surprised with what I dubbed “the spa in a box” as we filled (yet another) Kraft paper box with a plethora of spa and relaxation goodies – everything from a lavender scented sleep mask to Shea booties and lotions and bath gels galore. I slapped a color coordinated name tag and a pretty silk flower on the lid to add a little something extra to the whole presentation.

For my mother we ordered an LL Bean Boat and Tote bad in navy with her initials, and filled it with goodies such as navy flip flops, some preppy note cards, a silver Pandora charm, and a few other odds and ends to round it out.

Since I have a thing for matching (and my creative juices were depleted) I presented the ‘maids with a similar setup as the one my mom received. They each received a navy and white tote bag with their monogram, navy embellished flip flops (which, to no surprise, came in very handy at the reception), various lotions, shower gels, paper products, and a pair of pearl earrings. BMs Lauren and Christina received pearl studs, while my little sister, who doubled as MOH, got a Tracy Tenpenny pearl and sapphire pair.

The boys were so much easier to shop for! We ordered stainless steel Zippo lighters and flasks for each and had them all engraved with each guys’ monogram. We also included a cigar for each and filled the flasks to the brim with Knob Creek. We rounded the Kraft paper (notice a pattern here?!) gift bags out with a pair of navy argyle socks for each guy.

Our lovely little flower girls couldn’t be left out! We grabbed some furry aqua colored makeup bags from Bath and Body works and filled them with apple scented American Girl bath products, some adorable and whimsical note cards, and a color-by-numbers Disney princess cut-out. I decided to stray from the navy color scheme and decorated their bags with pretty pink grosgrain ribbon and pink daisy topped pens.

Lastly, we wanted to have a little something for our fantastic ushers and house party. The ushers received gifts very similar to the groomsmen while the girls in the house party were gifted with a preppy grab bag of stationery, bath confetti, and wine charms. Much like the flower girls, their prezzies got the girly treatment with pink and green ribbon and were adorned with a wooden initial painted pink.

We put a lot of thought into each of the gifts and were quite pleased when each recipient seemed to genuinely appreciate their loot. My dear friend Mere was so excited to use her note cards that she wrote us a thank you note that evening, at the party!