Over the last few weeks we’ve discussed suppliers who can help B2B find ways of personalising aspects of their Big Day.  As well as looking at commissioning craftspeople to create completely bespoke wedding wares, we’ve also talked about suppliers who are able to customise standard wares. To round off this mini-series, I thought you might enjoy seeing how easy it is to personalise an ‘off-the-shelf’ item, thereby creating a completely unique wedding gift.

The example I am going to use is a cardboard keepsake box from Marks and Spencer which I bought a few weeks ago for my fellow ballet dancer, Clare, as a gift from the rest of the dancers in our adult ballet class.  I considered the box to be of good quality and nicely decorated but I found myself hesitating at the checkout because I thought it a little bland and out-of-keeping with the white and green decorative scheme Clare had chosen for her wedding.

Then I had an idea – I’d face my fear of any task involving manual dexterity head-on and give the box a Mrs Moore-to-be makeover.  So, determined to accomplish my mission, I headed off to the Paperchase section of Selfridges where I purchased mint green tissue paper, ribbon and floral sticky tape.  Once I got home, I set to work with a glue stick and scissors and, in no time at all, the box was transformed.  But I wasn’t quite satisfied.  There was something missing, something that would make the box  personal to Clare and her H2B, namely their names and date of their wedding.  Now I thought it would be a piece of cake to find a packet of silver coloured adhesive letters and numbers to stick on the front of the box lid.  But I was mistaken.  Legs going like an egg whisk, I spent an entire lunch hour racing across Birmingham City Centre trying to track down the elusive items without success.  I could find silver case lower case letters, but not capitals.  Numbers in gold, but not in silver.  I feared that defeat might be hovering on the horizon.  And it would have been were it not for the Internet and the very nice man at Craft Superstore, who despatched exactly what I wanted by express delivery.  Within 24 hours I was undertaking my most challenging task yet – using a pair of tweezers to try to place the said letters and numbers in perfect alignment.  To be honest, despite my best efforts I think they were a bit wonky but perhaps that endowed the box with a certain charm and Clare’s wide smile upon receiving her gift convinced me that it had been well worth the effort.