We have received an amazing amount of love & support from our friends & family regarding our engagement. It was a weekend full of festivities that we were lucky enough to share with our parents & closest friends.

Lucky for me, a few of my girlfriends are in the same boat as I am, getting engaged & beginning the wedding planning process so we are able to bounce ideas off one another, talk flowers with each other, & celebrate one of the most exciting times of our lives together. Unfortunately for me, my oldest & closest girlfriends live 3,000 miles away. So while a lot of our California friends were able to spend the weekend with us, my girlfriends on the east coast were unable to travel out for the weekend.

Instead a few weeks later I received a beautiful package in the mail with some of the most amazing engagement gifts. Engagement gifts are something that not everyone does anymore. We aren’t having a traditional engagement party so I wasn’t really expecting any gifts, but it was so nice to be able to hear from my girlfriends. And now I have precious little reminders of them throughout me & Chris’s home.

Here is a little list of some great heartwarming & practical engagement gifts that any bride to be would love & adore.

1. Anything monogrammed
Okay maybe it’s the New Englander inside of me but I love me a good monogram. We have M & C’s all around our apartment so when I opened a gift from my sister & my best friend of a beautiful letter adorning my future last name I was in awe. Anyway to remind the happy couple that they will soon be one is fantastic.

2. Personalized jewelry
An amazing friend of mine designs jewelry & I am lucky enough to have a few of her pieces which I wear all of the time. But after Chris asked me to marry him, Annie gave me a beautiful necklace with our engagement date engraved in it. It was the second best piece of jewelry I got that night! Check out here stuff on her Etsy page. She is amazing!

3. Picture Frames
My girlfriends somehow seemed to find the most perfect pictures frames I have ever see to display some of our engagement photos in. I love, love, love having photos throughout our home & being able to display our photos in brand new frames was a perfect gift.

4. Artwork of Something Meaningful for the Couple
Like I said earlier, Chris & I grew up 3,000 miles away from each other. My cousin found us the cutest graphic on Etsy of maps of our two hometowns & a map of our current home, kind of like this one here. It was so thoughtful & a perfect gift for two people from opposite sides of the country. It is something I will truly cherish forever.