Lauren Goodman
Jan 16, 20184 min
In the words of Dua Lipa, you can make your own rules (and count ‘em) when it comes to wedding gifting for the bridal party. It can feel that the buying list is endless – mother of the bride, father of the groom, your bridesmaids, the groomsmen, page boys, flower girls – but when it comes to who you buy for, and the budget you choose for each bridal party gift – the most important thing is to celebrate your relationships and show how grateful you are to the people who have been by your side
Buying gifts for the wedding party is never on top of the wedding planning list, but if you make space for a row in that mother of all spreadsheets from the start, it’s something that you can look forward to once the big decisions are out of the way.
Wedding gifting can be a bit of a minefield. With a high street full of uninspiring novelty products, it can be difficult to find something meaningful and personal for the people who have helped create your big day. If you’re stuck for gifting inspiration, the new movement is to tap into wedding gifting experts to create bespoke wedding gifts for each member of the wedding party.
Laura Hanson and Katrina Hopewell are thankfully changing the wedding gifting landscape with their luxury label, Hanson & Hopewell. Founded in December 2016 with the goal to make gifting stylish and personal, as well as tell a unique story, the talented duo create unique keepsakes and uncover hidden gems from the best independent makers in the UK to create that ‘wow’ gifting moment for each member of the wedding party. We spoke to Katrina to get their essential guide to buying wedding gifts for your bridal party.
GIFTING FOR THE WEDDING PARTY
At Hanson & Hopewell we’re here to help you celebrate all of the key occasions in your wedding journey – from engagement gifts, hen party presents to bridal party thank you gifts – we aim to take away the hassle of finding a gift and freeing you up to focus on what’s most important to you.
We get to know our bride’s and those who are important to them to make sure that our gifting solutions are spot on. When it comes to our brides, more often than not they already have an idea in mind, it’s our job to then bring this to life and that’s our favourite part. We’re all about relishing the magical moments with the ones you love, celebrating your friendships and capturing wonderful memories.
Every product we source is either handmade by Hanson & Hopewell or by our inspirational community of partners and like us, they love what they do, resulting in an extra special gift.
BESPOKE AND OFF THE SHELF
We describe ourselves as luxury gifting experts, we work with brides, grooms, parents of the bride, maids of honour… all with the same goal - to provide an extra special gift to celebrate that extra special relationship.
From sassy mother of the groom gift sets for a Vegas destination wedding, to a honeymoon adventurers gift set for a couple off flash packing across South East Asia, no consultation is the same and that’s what keeps us on our toes and that’s why we love what we do.
Each bespoke enquiry helps us to develop our range of signature gift boxes too, set to launch in early 2018 we are busy putting the final touches to our selection of luxury bridesmaid gift boxes. And we’re busy beavering away with our creative community of partners to curate groom and groomsmen gift sets too - something our other halves have been nagging us to do since we launched.
Our Hanson & Hopewell gift sets come beautifully gift-wrapped in our bespoke luxury gift boxes, whether finished off with a dusting of natural flower confetti or encased in tissue paper perfectly matched to your wedding colours - there's no extra work required from you. Plus you can personalise your gift with our bespoke greetings cards with a personal message that we'll handwrite inside for you.
DO I NEED TO SET UP A WEDDING GIFT LIST?
It’s very traditional to create a gift list with the big retail giants but sometimes these can feel impersonal and more like a checklist of nice to haves rather than a lust list of meaningful gifts. Times have changed where couples live together before their big day, so the need for big branded consumer goods, aren’t as essential as they once were. There is a big trend to request financial donations, but this is quite hard for guests to navigate the right contribution for them and their budget. An inclusive way of doing this, especially for a honeymoon, is to create personalised experiences that you’d like to do whilst you’re away, for example, a wine tour, a spa day or even ‘Breakfast in bed.’ This both helps cater for your wedding guest as well as help you say thank you for the experience, potentially with a photo too.
DON'T FORGET YOURSELF
When you’re in the midst of wedding planning, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the detail. One of our favourite gift boxes is our signature ‘Wedmin ‘n’ Chill’ pamper set, perfect for the bride that feels like Wedmin is simply taking over her life! This gift box is full of luxury award winning organic beauty products handpicked from the best independent British makers featured in the likes of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and InStyle magazine, including a luxury bath oil filled rose petals and a gorgeous satin and velvet printed eye-mask. It’s the perfect bridal gift box to treat the bride in the run up to the wedding day.
Katrina x
If you’d like to have a conversation about creating bespoke luxury gifts for your wedding party, get in touch with Hanson and Hopewell by calling 0203 670 6021 or via email at hello@hansonandhopewell.com