When looking for wedding gifts, even the big, small, bizarre, thoughtful or even outrageous, wedding gift can be just the right thing, if it fits the couple you are buying for. Gifts can link into hobbies or something you know the couple will appreciate. What is certain is that a gift given from the heart is precious and does not always demand a high price tag, though royal weddings can be an exception as described below. Here are three surprising wedding gifts give to celebrity couples
Stella McCartney and Alasdhair Willis
In 2003, fashion designer Stella McCartney married publisher of Wallpaper magazine Alasdhair Willis. The couple reportedly had just one gift on their gifts list: trees. These were to create a forest in the grounds of their home in Worcester. These wedding gifts were far more environmentally friendly than most celebrity weddings. The trees were planted in the various gardens of the house, including the Engagement Garden, which shows Alasdhair’s taste for structure.
In 2009, Alasdhair gifted Stella the grand Anniversary Garden on their property, with a plaque on the wall that states “a gift to my beautiful wife, Stella”. The sixth year of marriage is represented by iron and sugar on the wedding anniversary gifts list, so Alasdhair likely went “off-list” for inspiration. Yet, flowers are an eternal gift from a husband to wife for all occasions.
Perhaps these gifts are not so surprising for a quirky couple. Stella runs her own successful fashion house and has said she finds inspiration from the colours in the gardens where the trees were planted, which have then been used in several of her collections.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spence
The “wedding of the century” took place on 29 July 1981, when Lady Diana Spencer wed Charles, Prince of Wales, a wedding that in today’s money cost a total of around making the total cost of the wedding close to USD70 million in today’s money. Presents were pouring into Buckingham Palace from all over the world, and all gifts were vetted.
One of the most surprising wedding gifts the couple received was a diamond-encrusted model boat, which at the time cost GBP500,000 (USD605,000). The bejewelled model of an Arabian dhow is said to be worth GBP1 million today. It was one of 6,000 gifts the couple received that were displayed at St. James’s Palace from 5 August to 4 October 1981. Some unwanted gifts allegedly went to some Palace staff.
Another surprising gift to the couple, with a much lesser value, was the gift of one ton of peat from a rural village council in Somerset for the Prince to use at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire estate, where he and Diana spent part of their honeymoon.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones
When Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas got married in November 2000, it was a ceremony fit for Hollywood and included a 40-member Welsh choir and performances by Jimmy Buffett and Art Garfunkel. The couple invited 350 guests, including tinsel town’s most famous.
Surprisingly for a couple with a more than healthy bank balance, the couple asked for cash as wedding gifts. It transpired that the money was to be put into a trust fund for their son Dylan Michal to access after reaching 18 when he would be able to donate the money to the charities of his choice. Dylan Michael was born in August 2000 and is now in his second year at university.
The press disapproved of Zeta-Jones and Douglas asking wedding guests to give to baby Dylan Michael’s charity fund in lieu of gifts, but Douglas responded that asking guests to donate money to a trust fund in the name of their son was done so that later in life, Dylan could learn the joy of giving.
Later, the couple are alleged to have recycled their wedding gifts. In 2002, Arlene Walsh’s Beverly Hills (213) column stated that on actor Kevin Pollock’s 44th birthday, Michael sent him a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck champagne wrapped in a Jean-Paul Gaultier corset. Months later, Pollock discovered from a mutual friend that Douglas had been given a case of the champagne as a wedding gift.