This is a question that we have all asked ourselves ALOT. Now that we are "middle-aged" (e'gad), more and more of our friends are getting married, and the task of getting a good gift has confounded us all. More often than not, the lucky couple have already been co-habitating for years and therefore have all the normal housey stuff.
When we realized that we were going to miss the weddings of so many good friends whilst overseas, it broke our hearts. Not only do we already miss you all intensely but now we are missing some of the most special moments in each other lives.
Back to the quandary of wedding gifts. I was searching online for a gift for Sam and Christine's wedding and a few ideas came to mind; flowers before the wedding (blah), a bottle of arse-wine A.KA. Gossips delivered to their room (funny but difficult to execute), sensual bath oils (cheesy). Hmmm, what is a cool present that is also meaningful and a sincere reflection of our mutual interests and long-lasting friendship?
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| Flowers, Wine, Bath Oils? Nah!!! |
A board game, better yet, a personalized board game. Anyone that knows me, knows that board games are my passion. I do enjoy winning, but because of fairly average logic and poor trivia knowledge I don't always win, with exception to pop culture in which Tim and I are basically unbeatable. Yes, board games is the answer! Me, Sam, Christine, and a very reluctant Tim have spent many a Friday night drinking wine and playing board games. I even found a company here in the States that makes personalized Monopoly Games, called Lovopoly. I thought I had hit the jackpot! What a cool idea!!
http://www.lovopoly.com/best-anniversary-wedding-birthday-valentine-gift.php?gad=COaBsoYEEgiiqX-nt-_-AhiQ0r39AyDC9J0c
Then I looked at the reviews. The currency is in US dollars and some of the Monopoly squares have been changed to married-esque situations so it is a bit tacky . Also, how many of you have actually finished a game of Monopoly? I adore boardgames and to my memory I have only ever finished one game and it took over four hours. By the end of it, we were both just praying for bankruptcy so the game would be over. I feared that the novelty of this gift would fade quickly and it wouldn't be played very often, so I scrapped this idea too.
What other boardgames can be personalized? A basic 'google search' gives plenty of options for custom-made boardgames, but in my opinion the best one is this sucker that you have to make yourself.
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| http://www.instructables.com/id/Personalized-Guess-Who/ |
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| Personalized playing boards |
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| It's just like normal Guess Who, except it stars all of us |
HOW TO PLAY PERSONALIZED "GUESS WHO"
The fundamental rules of the game are the same, with exception to the type of questions you can ask. Rather than just asking the typical aesthetic questions ie: "is your character wearing glasses?", you can ask personal questions about each character/ friend.
Examples of questions:
- Did this person go on the group holiday to Thailand in 2008? Or more specifically, did this unlucky person get bali belly, travellers' diarrhoea, or the rangoon runs on said Thailand trip in 2008?
- Did this person attend Marist College in Ashgrove?
- Is this person married?
- Does this person have any children?
- Does this person have a dog?
- Has this person lived in London?
- Has this person been to a Splendour in the Grass festival?
- Have you known this person for more than 5 years?
- Have you worked with this person?
- Have you seen this person naked? Now, this is trick question. At first you would assume that it eliminates those friends that you have not shagged, but think again. Who of us have not seen Viso naked on one of his nudey runs?
LETTER TO THE HAPPY COUPLE
To our dearest Sam & Christine, we love you both from New York to Brisbane and back again! Sorry we couldn't be there on your special day, but we hope this will help make up for our absence. We look forward to playing this with you when we get back home.
Love Bek & Tim xxxxx
SPECIAL THANKS
A while ago I asked you to send me head shots of yourselves. Thanks to everyone that emailed me their photos. Now you know what I wanted them for. Also a big thank you to Sars and Viso for carrying this home from NYC and delivering it for us.
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| Available at all good retailers |