engagement gift

Giving gifts is an opportunity to show how much you care. I always try and make an effort to make the gifts I give special for the recipient (like the time capsule here). My neighbor and friend Valerie has the same philosophy. Recently she asked me if I had any good ideas for an engagement gift. Not having any ideas right off hand, I of course, Googled it. I found a couple of really cute options. She ran with one of the ideas and did a great job!

You could call it a basket of firsts I guess. The idea is you give bottles of wine for all the couple's firsts... first house, first Christmas, first anniversary, etc.

Valerie found the template for those great labels here on Martha Stewart. She also took the idea a step further and coordinated the types of wine to match the event. See her description of each and the reason below.

First House: A Bordeaux called Chateau Prignac. Chateau is French for house.
First Child: A Pinot Nior called Angeline, which means little angel in Italian
First Christmas: We chose a Chardonnay…a “white” Christmas
First New Year: Prosecco, the Italian version of champagne
First Anniversary: A Sangiovese called Cupido (Cupid)
First Dinner Party: Our bottle. No real reason for this other than it doesn’t have too long of a shelf life and we figured this would be their “first” of the ones we chose.
*I should add a note to the First Dinner Party bottle. Valerie's family make their own wine every year. Do you recognize the label? I designed and printed them. You can see it closer here. So like she said, their bottle of wine was perfect for the first dinner party since it's doesn't have an extended shelf life. I'm sure the recipients appreciate having a very personal bottle in the collection too.

Another "first" I saw while looking online was first fight. I thought that was cute too. Kiss and make up - Nothing like a nice bottle of wine to make everything right!

Valerie found a fitting container too - a wine box of course. What a complete package - the box, the ribbon, the labels and of course the wine itself. All the little details of this gift definitely make it one to remember.

And finally, Alicia if you're reading, congratulations to you and Enzo!