Buying Engagement Presents is sometimes tricky. It is an important event for the “engagees” (is that a word?!) and you need that perfect balance of thoughtfulness, uniqueness and something they will treasure. Use our 5 steps to produce Engagement Presents that hit the spot.
What we need for Engagement Presents?
It has to be something that involves both of the excited engaged parties. Likelihood is that you know one of them well but not necessarily both of them and if you want your engagement present to be a surprise then you can’t start drilling them too much for informatio you can use to select and customise the engagement present.
Because this is a very specific event that uniquely involves two people (a bit like a wedding or anniversary to be honest) then our customers usually select particular designs that will suit. The theme must be the loving couple and their intention to spend a lifetime together but you can add a few personalisation twists to make it really special. Here you can read more information.
How do I become creative with my Engagement Presents?
Because there are two people involved we usually recommend one of our designs that include two or more cut out apertures to signify the two people. However, if there is a common interest then a single cut out might be OK. It really depends on how well you know them. If it’s your sister for example you will know her well and chances are you know the lucky guy as well and have done for a while so you can use the 5 steps below to come up with something special. Being creative is not that difficult when you have a set of guidelines to help as we outline below. And don’t worry you don’t have to make anything, we can do all that for you, all you need to do is come up with some creative ideas, using our help to produce that perfect engagement present idea.
Why 5 Secrets of finding the perfect gift?
Well when I thought about trying to come up with a unique, exclusive and personalised engagement gift I realised there were five key things to consider. Run through these five things an surely you will end up with the answer.
Engagement Presents Tip#1 – Interests
Hopefully one of the reasons the loved ups are together is that they have or had a common interest.
This might be an animal like their pet dog or cat. Or maybe it’s a horse for example, maybe they met at a riding club. What about their car or a sport for example. We find that a lot of young couples nowadays have a sport interest in common. We have just designed our Triathlon Sign for a customer whose daughter and prospective son-in law are both mad triathletes so this had to be a major part of a special gift for them.
They might enjoy cycling for example, or skiing or sailing.
I can’t list everything of course, but you will need to if you want to get inside the options for the perfect engagement present. Try and focus on a key interest, rather than a ‘sort of’ interest as this will have more impact.
Engagement Presents Tip#2 – Memories & Experiences
Young couples seem to be driven by shared experiences and achievement today. Such shared experiences are very powerful images that warrant serious inclusion in the thinking process for engagement gifts. Achievement, memories and experiences might include having a first child, running a marathon together, a memorable holiday – even the one they met on for example, going up in a hot air balloon or even buying their first house. These achievements are solid experiences that mean a lot to the people involved and are typical ideas that need to be put into the engagement gift melting pot.
Engagement Presents Tip#3 – Preferences
Visiting someone’s home is a good way to get ideas for memories and experiences too. Look for photos or pictures that can give you some indications.
If you don’t know them that well then I would suggest going for a fairly neutral set of colours and a standard engagement style cut out design like the double offset hearts or the lovebirds.
Engagement Presents Tip#4 – Locations
This is an often forgotten secret to nailing the perfect gift. All you have discovered about memories and experiences above had to happen somewhere. My wife and I got engaged in Paris and married on the Greek island of Zante for example. Your happy couple might have met on a holiday in a certain place, or it the deed had already been done they might have got engaged in a specific location. These little details show you have put some good thought into this engagement present.
They might have met at University, for example or whilst doing something in a certain place, bungee jumping in New Zealand, or running the New York Marathon.
When you think about it everything has to happen SOMEWHERE, and that ‘somewhere’ becomes very important to people and the location becomes a massive part of the visualisation of any memory or experience.
Nearly all the custom gifts we create for people have some indication of location, mostly using maps but sometimes words and often the picture image portrays a location too. So don’t forget this crucial element of finding the perfect gift for someone.
Engagement Presents Tip#5 – Unique, Individual & Original
This is where you start to put it all together but the main aim is to make sure that your engagement gift is Unique, Individual and Original. You might be thinking how the hell can I do that? But never fear there is a way you can create the perfect present and someone can make it for you.
What you need to do now is to bring together all the information you have assembled above, look at the options available and you could be giving a handmade, One-off or limited edition, attractive and extremely poignant gift to your loved one or close friend for their special day.
This is where you have to become a little creative so to help you out I will give you some real examples of actual commissions our customers have asked for to enable them to give that perfect gift. GOT TO HERE
Examples of actual Engagement Presents we have helped our customers create
James and Emma met at a VW Camper convention.
With a shared love of VW camper vans it was inevitable that when James and Emma got together the trusty, or is it rusty, old VW Campervan would feature strongly in their lives for ever. There is nothing quite as iconic as the traditional Split Screen VW Camper and we are very pleased with our design as it was a struggle to design it so that our cutting machine would cut it and the design would still look right. Proud to be British was another theme so our Split Screen camper with a Union Jack material is perfect for them. We wrote their engagement details on the bottom of the picture too.
Our
Double Heart Cutout.
A popular choice for engagements, anniversaries and weddings. The hearts can either be side by side or offset but the idea is (and you can play around with this as well) is that one heart map signifies where one partner comes from and the other heart map shows where their loved one comes from. Simple but effective. 
Our classic Lovebirds cut out design. Often customers choose this as it is but you can apply the same customisation techniques as before. Why not use the two lovebirds to house the map locations of where the two lovebirds came from and the heart can either stay as it is, have another map of where they live now, will love, or where they met. The variations are endless. 
Or if you prefer, try our Love Hedgehogs instead.
Did they get engaged in the romantic city of Paris for example. Don’t miss this opportunity.
These are just some examples of how to take your hard creative work and come up with an idea for the perfect engagement gift. In a lot of cases we might be one jump ahead of you. Based on customer feedback and sales we have identified 3-4 fabric choices for each of our designs that are most popular. This does not mean that your perfect picture is not unique because the fabric placement within the picture is never the same twice.
But this does not take away your ability to make your own choices so you always have access to our wide fabric swatches and of course for that absolutely personal picture you can send us your own fabric. Clearly any map based engagement gifts are also unique to you.
So by following the 5 personalisation tips above you should now have an idea distilled in your head of colours, locations, designs etc and anything that will make it special. We take your own creativity, add some of our magic and then we put it all together for you to produce a truly personal picture that will make the perfect engagement gift.
This is the way to do it:
- Choose the cut out design from our online shop that will match your ideas – or contact us for new options
- Select your choice of size (if available) and select your frame preference from the dropdowns
- Select your choice of popular fabric – or select the ‘Custom’ option and then
- Select from our wider swatch of available fabrics – or
- Send us your own fabric
- Make a map choice if this is part of the design (we will be in touch directly to confirm the exact locations)
- For all custom choices complete ‘order notes’ at checkout and we will contact you
- Select your delivery/collection option (only select local collection if you will be collecting from us in Dorchester)
- Pay via Paypal, Debit or Credit Card
- Then it’s over to us
So go to our online shop – Gecko Designs Shop – and get started. Need some more reassurance – have a look at what our delighted customers say.
Please don’t forget to tell everyone you know how easy this is. Use our sharing options to tell everyone you know. We do run competitions and offer seasonal discounts so everyone can benefit from knowing a little more about Gecko Designs.
Thanks for reading and happy gift creating
Tim & Elaine