Bridesmaid Gift Ideas She'll Actually Use
There is a well-known problem with bridesmaid presents, and everybody planning a wedding runs into it at about the same point.
You want to give four or five people something that feels considered rather than bought in a batch. It should suit them all despite their being quite different. It should not be another candle. And it needs to arrive before the wedding, at a moment when you are already managing a hundred other things.
We make hair accessories by hand, so we are not neutral. But we have sent a great many of these to bridal parties now, and there are a few things worth knowing whatever you end up choosing.
The three tests a good bridesmaid gift passes
It is useful on the morning itself. The getting-ready hours are long, and anything that earns its place on that table — hair, skin, something to drink from — is worth more than something that goes home in a bag unopened.
It photographs. Not vanity: those getting-ready photographs are among the ones people keep. A gift that looks lovely on a wrist or in the hair quietly ends up in the album.
It survives the wedding. This is the one most presents fail. A keepsake with a date on it is put in a drawer. Something genuinely wearable gets used for years, and is remembered every time.
Why a handmade scrunchie does rather well at all three
It is useful precisely when everyone is having their hair done. It looks beautiful on a wrist in photographs. And it gets worn long after — which is the part that matters.
It also solves the sizing problem. You do not need to know anybody's dress size, shoe size or taste in scent.
Matching sets for the whole party
This is what most people ask us for, and it is the thing we would suggest.
We can make a set in one fabric so the whole party matches — ivory duchesse satin, or a soft blush, or pale blue. Or a set in complementary fabrics, which we rather prefer: the same colour family in satin, velvet and cotton, so each person's is a little different but they photograph as a group.
Either way they arrive in our hand-crafted gift boxes, one per person, ready to hand over. No wrapping, no assembling little bags at midnight.
Sets of four or five usually pass our free UK shipping threshold, which is a small mercy in a wedding budget.
Matching the dresses
If your bridesmaids are in a particular colour, we can usually find it.
Our studio is a few minutes from Goldhawk Road, where the fabric shops that supply London's fashion schools have traded for decades. If you send us a photograph or a swatch of the dress fabric, we can go and look. We have matched some fairly specific greens and dusty blues this way.
We can also add contrast piping — one customer asked for ruby velvet with crimson piping, which turned out beautifully.
Please allow four weeks for bespoke pieces, and do ask earlier than you think you need to. Spring and early summer are busy.
Which size to choose
A small practical point that makes the difference between a gift used and a gift drawered.
If a bridesmaid has thick, long or curly hair, choose the XL. A regular scrunchie on heavy hair stretches near its limit all day and gives up quickly. The XL holds the same hair comfortably and lasts.
If you are not sure across a group of five, our honest advice is to send XL for everyone. Nobody has ever objected to a scrunchie being generous.
Everything we make comes with our signature wide elastic, which is the reason ours hold when others slide. If someone prefers a gentler band, we can use a thinner elastic — just say so in the order.
Other things that work, in fairness
Not everything has to come from us.
A good silk eye mask — useful the night before, when nobody sleeps. Something to drink from at the getting-ready — glassware that will be reused. A proper hair clip, if her hair is up for the day. Something with a date on it works if — and only if — the person is sentimental about that sort of thing. Half of people treasure them and half quietly do not.
The pattern in all of these is the same: buy for the person, not for the role.
Timings
- Standard orders — a few days for making, plus postage
- Matching sets — please give us a fortnight where you can
- Bespoke, matched or piped — four weeks
- Spring weddings — do ask by February; March to May is our busiest stretch
Do get in touch if you would like help choosing. Tell us the colours and how many, and we will suggest something.
Everything is cut and sewn by hand in a small studio in West London. Rosalind learned to sew at her mother's side in Hampstead, where they spent weekends making smocks, dresses and accessories together.