Groomsman gift idea: Home Brewing Kit
Beer is the gift that keeps on giving. For about $40 bucks each you can give buddies the gift of brew! With these kits, your wedding party can expect to have about a gallon of homemade beer in about a month.
View the Mr Beer Product Catalog
Thank you cards
Wow, a month later and we're still cranking out Thank You cards. The difficult part is writing down all the gifts and keeping track of the addresses.
We had about 180 total cards to write so we split the load evenly and wrote a few cards per night. We didn't do anything special for the thank-you cards. My mom bought about 80 cards from the Dollar Tree (4 card per pack / 25 cents per piece) and we bought 2 50-count packs of cards from Target (20-25 cents per piece). Expenditure on thank you cards is maybe $40 dollars and then $80 worth of postage to send these bad boys out.
Wedding Registry Management
We registered at too many places because we weren't sure of what we needed and some stores have better shipping and discounts than others. We picked gifts from Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Amazon.com and Macys. We dropped Amazon.com and Target after a while because it's a hassle managing one wedding registry let alone four.
One thing we noticed is that people love giving kitchen items from Bed Bath and Beyond.
As we currently face the task of writing "Thank You" notes I noticed one major problem with the Bed Bath and Beyond wedding registry manager -- it does not have a summary of who gave you the gifts. It is an unfortunate problem because I'm sure I lost some of the packing slips in all the excitement. The Macy's registry DOES have a Thank You card manager and it is infinitely useful. Thank you Macy's!
If I had to do it over again I would register at only one place. Of our registries Macy's was the best. First, it's easier to manage a single guest list. Second, Macy's has a "Thank You" card manager. Third, the prices are about the same as Bed Bath and Beyond but Macy's often has massive sales in-store and online (frequently 30%-60% off) whereas Bed Bath and Beyond only offers 20% off coupons in the mail that are only redeemable in-store. Kudos to Macy's for letting people save money.
If you need a second gift registry, Amazon.com is a nice choice because it is online-only which would force people to ship you gifts which is a lot easier than piling gifts in a truck and lugging them home.
Groomsman Gifts: leatherman micra and hand crank flashlights
I wasn't sure what to get my groomsmen for gifts so I went the cheap and practical route. They know I'm a chintzy bastard so I think they're fine with it. Usually you buy monogrammed items but I did not have the time to order anything special online and I don't like the stuff at Things Remembered stores.
We happened by a Brookstone the day we bought the wedding bands. I bought some solar-powered hand crank flash lights for $14 each that would have been great for camping. Then I got it in my head to get them Leatherman tools. The original Leatherman is moderately priced at about $30 but that's a lot of money when you have to buy gifts for 5 guys. Instead, I opted for the Leatherman Micra, a miniature multi-tool that has scissors, knife, screwdrivers and a few other thingies. I ordered them 2-day express delivery from Amazon for $15 each. A savings of $5-10 per item versus Sears, Bass Pro or Outdoor World.
Wedding Bands
In the end we found a nice deal at Fred Meyer Jewelry in Lakeside Mall. We got both wedding bands for a combined $200 after tax (both 14k white gold bands, $120 for the man's, $80 for the woman's). We did not order the protection plan because (1) you don't know if your jeweler will be in business in the next few years and (2) it's unlikely we would ever bring our rings in to get polished or re-whitened.
We ordered the wedding bands on Saturday and picked them up after resizing on Wednesday evening. It is a 3 business day turnaround time if you need your wedding bands resized.
We're satisfied with what we got. If we get tired of them after a few years we can upgrade later. No big whoop.