Old wedding presents still used

BrandyGran

What a great idea Cariad!!

Thank you. It was sure and certain the most useful present I could have asked for and, without it, I'm not sure whether I could have stretched far enough to get average level 2 bed house in average area and might have had to settle for a 1 bedroom flat instead and I was scared I'd get trapped in it for goodness-knows-how-long. I did get trapped - for a LONG time - in my starter house....but at least it was a house and not a flat - whew! No maintenance charges, an extra bedroom I could (and did) use to get some lodger income initially.

I have a dinner service that I bought just after my wedding……..it’s kept for ‘best’ and rarely used. I also have a glass vase that my DGM bought for my 21st birthday which was not long after I married. I’ve treasured it ever since but doubt that it will be so loved when I’m gone.

Two Witney blankets, a cut glass bowl, 2/3 dishes left from original sets, some china that belonged to my Mother and Grandmother before her. It is lovely to look back and see what we still have and use. What a great thread thank you BrandyGran

I have tablecloths, a bread board, at least four crystal tumblers and fruit bowls from our wedding nearly 50 years ago.
I also have several cut glass or crystal bowls and glasses that my parents had at their wedding in 1950.

I've got a potato masher and serving spoon that were part of a set my mother gave me when we got engaged in 1970. I've also got salad servers, and a framed Van Gogh print that were wedding presents.

I rue the day I took my weighing scales from my BIL (wedding present) to the charity shop. They were wooden, large with metal weights and brass dish, painted with orange flowers (very 70s).
The next lightweight plastic rubbish scales I bought have joined them in the charity shop,

I still use a set of Prestige kitchen utensils given to us on our wedding in 1971, also a cut glass vase given by my DH’s favourite aunt!

I’ve been married 35 years and have a silver cutlery canteen and royal doulton dinner service , which were wedding presents and get used at Christmas etc . I also had a habitat everyday dinner service and still have a few plates , bowls and cups left . Oh and a sandwich toaster , which we still use .

I still use 2 sets of Pyrex casserole dishes, one lid was unfortunately broken, I also have a set of Pyrex mixing bowls and a pewter cruet set.
All given to us as wedding presents when we married in Singapore in 1970.
As we were a forces family they are all very well travelled.

We still have and use most of a dinner service which was a wedding present in 1976. Also a set of cutlery , not a gift but collected by petrol coupons the same year.
Our cheese is kept in a Tupperware box and I have several other Tupperware boxes that I still store dry goods in. Some of them from the 1960s.

My Pink Denmark wedding china ( from 1971) is in regular use. I love it.
Long divorced from the chap!

I’m still using a breadboard that was a wedding present to my mother in 1945. I can just make out the pattern on the edge.

A dinner service plus a Poole pottery one I gave to my parents when I got married and I have since inherited.
A crystal fruit bowl.
A double cake tin in a bright orange colour fashionable at the time.
Several Tupperware boxes.
An eiderdown hidden away until the last few years when we have covered our knees with it on chilly evenings.

A Le Creuset fondue set from my MIL. Bright orange on a black cast iron base. 1973. A Le Creuset orange casserole and 4 flat orange dishes. Will have to Google what they are called.

My parents bought us a lovely old pine dresser which I am looking at covered in sparkly lights for the winter.

I love all my old things. Have very few new. (Wearing today a 15+ year old boiled wool East jacket and similar aged Wallis trousers with cosy leggings underneath).

What will happen to our old things....who will love them after me?. Both DDs have houses with their own furniture. Oh well I have loved them for more than 50 years. Hopefully I will love them for a few more.

I have quite a few of my wedding presents, a Kenwood food mixer, Denby memories dinner service ( few bits broken) a silver canteen of cutlery, a carriage clock also an antique bed frame with ornate head and tail board - it’s stored in my garage and I keep meaning to sell it.

My parents married in 1943 and they were given things from their parents and also friends which were not new, being in the war time so I now often see things on the antique road show, that we used every day but which had come down the family from various relatives. My granny on my mothers side was known to be very good at finding things and they had a weekly market where there was a man with a stall that sold mostly china and crockery and he definitely used to get ends of china runs etc, so if a precious cup or plate from your teaset was broken she was the one to ask if she could find another one from this man, and I especially remember quite a run on Midwinter things that she would regularly go to find.

The thing that I have now which is not a wedding gift, but was my gift to my mother and which I have had since she died ,was a rather lovely large, red with white embroidery tablecloth with 12 matching serviettes that I bought for her in , I think 1969 when I was living in portugal.

After the war and rationing which made people hoard things and not get rid of stuff, my parents rather went the other way and as they used to say, they didnt want to bring tat stuff from the seaside or holidays and would rather have one decent thing to enjoy. The portuguese hand embroidery was beautifully done and it became the christmas tablecloth every year when the table leaves were out and this was big enough to stretch right over. So it was used for parties and any big occasion and washed beautifully and still looks lovely as it has only been used for those sort of things. Thinking about it now I may hand it on to my son as I dont think I shall be holding big occasions myself any longer. But I like to think of the many times it has come out to accompany whatever we were celebrating.

On a much more down to earth note I have a little square box on legs with a lifting lid. This is the shoe box, with polishes and brushes and cloths for whatever you might need. Somewhat rickety but it had belonged to my husbands father since he was a young man, and it still is useful but I wouldnt now do as my husband used to do and rest his foot on the top to give the final polish shine to his cleaned shoes.

My bone china dinner service, the stainless steel meat dish complete with spikes, used regularly even though I don't like stainless steel and deliberately did not ask for any, the Le Creuset casserole from Habitat, and the Ercol pine cupboard, part of a dresser, bought with my tax rebate, therefore a wedding present from HMRC. And all my cut glass from Stourbridge, sadly no loner fashionable.
The marriage did not survive, but hey, so what!

I have my paternal grandparents dinner service which was a wedding present and still use occasionally (no little people around) along with a large serving platter and two clocks.

I have some pieces from my maternal grandmother which are far too precious to use.

No wedding presents survived my parents marriage.

Use our wedding flatware, crystal and silver cutlery when I feel like it.

I have a canteen of Cooper Brothers Sheffield silver plate, Jesmond pattern, that my mother and father gave us for a wedding present almost sixty years ago. It used to get regular outings for dinner parties but now only high days and holidays.

The other thing is a Granton ham knife that was given to us for a wedding present by a next door neighbour whom I had known all my life. It is still in regular use and when the original bone handle gave up the ghost, it went back to the factory here in Sheffield to be re-handled. I hope when I no longer need it that DD will take it and use it in her turn.

In a few weeks we will have been married 49 years. I still use a stainless steel pronged carving dish which I had together with carving knife and fork as a wedding present.

All my wedding presents are old

We were married in 1978, still using my orange plastic Addis baking spatula, it's better than any other spatula I've tried, I'd be lost without it.

Grammaretto

Decluttering, I keep coming across things I have a sentimental attachment to.
I wish I didn't.

The dinner service, with one soup dish missing. Would anyone want it? I doubt it.
When I go it will all be thrown out I'm fairly sure so I'm trying to part with stuff now.
I'm still using our wedding present towels from 1969.

I refuse to get rid of stuff just because that is what my executors will do.

We have just downsized our house and my criteria for disposing of things are whether I will need them again in my potential quite short future - approx 10 years +/- rather than 40 years or more. So toys have gone, children's books. Runs of journals, they are now all available online, Ring binders with photocopies of articles and offprints, again all now available online. That cleared 2 x 6 shelf bookcases and so on.

I am giving nothing away that I might use or is of sentimental value. I am not a clutter person, I have few surplus clothes.

My Mrs Beeton cookery book is still on the shelf along with a rose from my bouquet which was pressed in the book just after our wedding in October 1970.

We regularly use the meat plate that was my granny's. My parents had it and i bagsied it when my Dad died.

I'm still using a blender that was a wedding present of Mom and Dad's. I am still using a set of Salter scales and have 2 teatowels that are still in perfect condition. We've been married 51 years.