GOLDA gang, greetings from Paris! We brought our older daughter Edith here for a post-school adventure. This morning we picked up this insane challah at Mamiche and climbed the Eiffel Tower.
Summer means travel and also weddings, as one listener reminded us in the Ask GOLDA segment on today’s episode of our new podcast GOLDA Girls. She writes:
I have like five weddings to go to this summer, most of them Jewish. I’m trying to find gifts that are cool and meaningful, but nothing I have found quite works. Do you have tips, or should I just give up and cut some checks?
Wedding gifting is serious business—and my co-hosts and I take it seriously. Novelist Esther Chehebar says she rarely deviates from the registry, and Rabbi Diana Fersko recommends perusing the registry to get a sense of the couple’s style before coming up with your own gift. Basically, if you’re going to go off-registry, you better know what you’re doing. Journalist Gabby Deutch suggests a gift themed to the couple’s location or a favorite place, and I’m always up for something personalized (but not monogrammed).
GOLDA Girls’ Summer Wedding Gift Guide
I recommended these chic candlesticks last year during wedding season, and I stand by the pick. They’re from Happy Kangaroo, one of my favorite (Jewish-owned!) stores on the Upper West Side. It’s the perfect place to pick up a gift on the way to someone’s house, and they also have a very elevated wedding edit online.
Gabby found this (also from Happy Kangaroo) for a close friend in D.C.’s wedding. Beautiful and topical: A+ gift!
Gabby also recommends these cute travel Shabbat candles as an easy and sweet gift.
ABC Carpet & Home is known for its carpets—the business started as a pushcart selling rugs more than 100 years ago—but they have beautiful gifts too. I love this eye tray as an auspicious accessory for a couple’s new Jewish home.
This clever take on the smash glass from our friends at Tchotchke is a perfect pre-wedding gift. They also have an option to get the broken pieces made into a stained glass hamsa.
Let us know your out-of-the-box, off the registry wedding gift ideas at [email protected].
GOLDA Events
Our next GOLDA Mahjong Night is taking place at one of our favorite restaurants on the Upper East Side on Tuesday, June 23 for a night of open play (no instruction). Location will be revealed to attendees the week before the event! Sign up here.
Au revoir and stay GOLDA,
Stephanie
