DIY Wedding Gift

This past weekend Justin and I had the pleasure of attending my cousin's wedding in a little town west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While the weather was cooperative, it was a fabulous affair with an autumn inspired color palette and chock full of family and friends. The men wore dark chocolate brown tuxes with a bronze vest and tie and the bridesmaids wore milk chocolate strapless dresses with custom made jewelry. Rust and burgundy flowers made up the bouquets and boutonnieres and white flowers filled the church.

Leading up to the wedding, my schedule was crazy-busy, so when it dawned on me that it was less than a week away, I became frantic to figure out what to give them. On a whim, a couple years ago, Justin decided he was going to be a vintner and whipped up a couple batches of wine that yielded about four dozen bottles. If he would have known at the time that we would still be drinking it two years later, he probably would have stopped after the first batch, but surprisingly it has aged beautifully and inspired this DIY wedding gift. My cousin and her husband have anything and everything needed for a full home and unlike most newlyweds (who scramble to find a matching spoon, fork, and knife), they are charged with consolidating two homes into one. Armed with the knowledge that they love anything wine related I grabbed a bottle from our cellar (a.k.a. cardboard boxes filled with wine bottles in our basement), an empty basket, a pair of wine glasses, and got to work.

In addition to joining in their celebration, I was recruited for the job of invitation designer. I abused this privilege and swiped the custom logo and leaf motif I created to design labels for the naked wine bottle. I stuck one on the front with their motif prominently displayed for all to see...

one on the back crediting us for the creation of the wine and the year it was made...

and one striped over the top of the cork. This took all of an hour or two and my materials consisted of a page of Avery full-sheet crack-and-peel label paper, printer, x-acto knife, and my design wits.

For those of you who don't have access to a cellar box full of homemade wine, you could easily remove the labels from a store bought bottle and relabel it with your own (crediting the original maker, of course).

After I branded the bottle, I washed the store bought wine glasses and wrapped the wine bottle stopper that I included in the basket as well. When it came to assembling the basket, I realized too late that I didn't have any filler to prop up the items. However, I did have white and silver wrapping paper and a paper shredder. Yup, I shredded the paper to create coordinating filler for the basket.

So, in anticipation that my cousin and her hubby have already opened up their gift and are on a plane to Jamaica at the moment, I hope my quick and easy DIY wedding gift gave you an idea of how to customize the next gift you give.

Congratulations Jacky and Kurt!