Fun fact – the first bridal registry was created by Marshall Field’s in 1924 as a way for an engaged couple to indicate which china, crystal, or silver patterns they wanted their family and friends to purchase for their wedding gifts.  Since then, the idea grew, with Target being the first company to go digital in the mid-90s.  While it’s a very useful and almost standardized service for stores to offer, it sometimes makes it difficult for family and friends to snag something off of it if you didn’t put enough on it.  Alternatively, if the couple scanned everything in the store, it can be overwhelming to find something for them that is meaningful.  Some people ignore the registry altogether, opting instead for a personalized wedding gift or an item that means something special to them.

Recently, Reddit posted the question to married couples of what was the best, most thoughtful/useful, non-requested wedding gift you received on your wedding day?  We compiled the best answers for you.

What Was The Most Useful or Thoughtful Non-Requested Wedding Gift You Received?

We’ve been married fifteen years, and the only wedding gift we still have and actually use is a set of Disney glasses from McDonald’s.  My wife worked in a retirement home, and she was close with one of the dishwashers. The woman didn’t have any money, so her wedding gift was the glasses and a few new towels. It was all she could afford.  The other stuff we got, the toaster oven and the good china and silver, are either long gone or in a box in the garage. My kids are young, and they love the glasses.

I almost always give the couple a really nice picture frame: more often than not, they’ll end up putting one of their wedding pictures in it and once a wedding picture has been framed, it’s almost never moved.  I’ve been in peoples houses many years later, and the frame I gave them is still in use and out where people can see it.

$150 on our anniversary with a note from a friend saying “Go have a nice 1st anniversary. I’m sure you got plenty of money on your wedding day, so some money now I thought would be fun.”  Although this did make us think we lost his card somehow on the wedding day.

Mom gave my wife her own 1960’s era Betty Crocker cookbook, full of little notes she had made over the years. Women, if you want to keep a man happy, learn to cook like his mother.

Someone got us a Kinect and wrote a nice card about how important it is for married couples to have fun and laugh together. It was one of the few gifts we got that really felt like someone had put a lot of thought into both the card, the gift and the sentiment.

We gave some friends a TiVo with lifetime service. It’s an item being fought over in the divorce so I’d say it was a good gift.

A friend of mine wrote on Facebook about a fire he had in his garage that he was luckily able to put out. His wife commented with something like, “At the time we thought, ‘Who gives a fire extinguisher as a wedding gift,’ but whoever it was must have known Bill!”

My in-laws gave us a “date” every month for our first year of marriage to remind us to go act like we are still dating! We got different gift cards. It was great!

This was after the wedding, but I was the guy’s best man, and I had a key to his apartment. The day before they got back from their honeymoon, I made sure to stock his fridge with food, drinks, fresh vegetables, snacks etc. so that they wouldn’t have to leave the house to go grocery shopping.

At my Aunt’s wedding shower, there was one package wrapped in the pile of presents that her mother said had to wait until the end when there was just family around. After all the other gifts were opened and the guests had left, the package was opened. It was a set of silverware, and attached was a card from her father, who had passed on nearly eight years prior from lyme disease complications.  I never got to read the card myself, but my aunt only got a little ways into it before she burst into tears. From what I understood, he’d written it shortly before his death, and said he was sorry he couldn’t walk her down the aisle but loved her and was proud of her. I’m certain it meant the world to her, and I’m thankful my grandma remembered that gift after all those years.