A wedding gift with a story: how to put a handcrafted piece on the wedding list

Open half a dozen wedding lists and you will almost always find the same thing: a coffee machine, a set of towels, a set of glasses, a mixer. They are useful gifts, and thank goodness. But ten years from now few couples remember who gave them the towels.

A good list needs two things: what is needed to set up the home and one or two pieces that stay. A wooden lamp is one of them. It is switched on every evening, ages well and, with a little beeswax from time to time, accompanies a home for decades.

FAROL, the lamp we made for a newly married couple

Some time ago we wanted to give a lamp to a newly engaged couple, and it did not seem right to choose for them. We asked them to visit our website and tell us which one they liked. They loved MACIÇO, a floor lamp made from an old railway sleeper, which in Portugal is also called a “sulipa”.

The wood we had left was no longer the same as theirs, but we still had the last section of a sleeper, marked by a long, hard life. Instead of repeating MACIÇO, we made another piece, designed for the place where it would live and the use it would be given. We mounted it on a black metal base, which lifts it off the floor and gives it a different presence, and an iron dowel runs through it from side to side. It came out taller, and almost looks like a lighthouse, the kind that guides us through the fog. Hence the name: FAROL (lighthouse).

We gave it to them when they came back from their honeymoon, about a month after the wedding. They were delighted and sent us a photograph of it lit, already in their home. It is a gift they will not forget, because it is unique.

Today it would not be possible to make another like it, or even similar: the sleeper is gone. That is how it is with all our pieces. Each one is born from a trunk that exists only once, and that is what makes a wedding gift so special. Asking the couple to choose is the best way to get it right, and the safest is for them to choose among the pieces on the website, each with its own story.

The photograph of FAROL is an ambient image created from the real piece. The room is illustrative.

A one-of-a-kind piece on a wedding list

There is something we would rather say up front: if the couple puts on the list a lamp that exists only once and someone buys it in the shop before a guest gives it, the piece is gone. There is no second one. So we suggest three paths:

• Put a collection on the list instead of a single piece. For example, the handcrafted wooden lamps. The guest opens the link and chooses among the pieces available at that moment.
• Choose two or three pieces they like. If one is sold, the others are still there.
• Talk to us. If the chosen piece is sold in the meantime, we cannot repeat it, but write to us at info@lamswoodcrafts.com and we will help you find, among those available, the one closest to what the couple was looking for.

To bring everything together in one place, an online wedding list makes life easier for everyone. On Happy Giftlist you paste the link of a product from any shop and the platform fills in the name, image and price. Guests do not need an account: they open the list from a link, mark what they are going to give and nobody duplicates someone else’s gift. For a larger piece, such as a floor lamp, several guests can join forces and each contribute a share.

A warning: reserving a gift on the list does not reserve the piece in our shop. If it is a one-of-a-kind piece, the guest should buy it right after reserving it.

Which piece to choose

If we had to point to just one, it would be a table lamp: it fits any home, new or old, large or small, and looks good on a sideboard, a bedside table or in an entrance hall.

CÔA, in the photograph, is a good example: pale plane tree wood on a schist base, with a black shade. Like all our pieces, it is one of a kind, so it may already have found a home by the time you read this. In the table lamp collection there are others waiting.

A floor lamp, such as FAROL or MACIÇO, calls for a reading corner or a room with space, and it is the gift that tends to bring several guests together. For those who prefer to give something smaller, the candle holders bring the same wood to the dining table.

All our pieces use a normal LED bulb with an E27 base. If the couple wants to get the light right from day one, we explain how in Which bulb to use in a wooden lamp.

And for Christmas

As the end of the year is already approaching, the same platform serves another tradition: the online Secret Santa. With no slips of paper in a hat, the draw is done online, each person receives by email or WhatsApp the name they drew and can add a wish list, so nobody has to guess.

A good wedding gift does not have to be expensive or extraordinary. It has to still be there at home when the party is just a photograph. You can see the available pieces in handcrafted wooden lamps or in all the pieces.

Note: LAMS Woodcrafts has a partnership with Happy Giftlist, which features our pieces on its wedding list page. The links to Happy Giftlist in this article are part of that partnership.