What to Gift the Host: A Guide to Personalized Linens
There is a particular kind of gift that hosts keep. It isn't the most expensive thing anyone brought, and it's rarely the flowers. It's the object that turns out to be useful the following Tuesday, and again the Tuesday after that, and that carries the name of the person who brought it. Personalized linens are that gift. Here is how to choose one for the occasion.
The dinner party
You're arriving at eight with a bottle and a question about where to put your coat. The traditional gift is wine, and the problem with wine is that it's consumed. Bring the wine in something that stays.
A canvas wine bag that holds two bottles is the version of this we make. It's splash-proof, embroidered, and the host will use it the next time they're the guest. If you know them well enough for a monogram, their initials on the bag turn it from a nice gesture into a small heirloom. If you don't, "BYOB" stitched across the front is a joke that ages well.
The other dinner-party gift that lands: a set of cocktail napkins. Four hemstitched linen napkins, embroidered with the host's initials or a line that suits them, are the sort of thing nobody buys for themselves and everybody is pleased to own. Our Please Leave at Nine set is for the host who loves people and also loves 9:15. Give it to the friend who'd laugh.
The weekend invitation
A lake house, a cabin, a long weekend somewhere with a dock. The stakes are higher; you're a guest for three days. The gift should acknowledge the house, not just the evening.
Place-card cocktail napkins embroidered with the house's name, or the family's, are the piece we'd bring. They come out for every guest afterward, and the host thinks of you each time. If the house has a name (and Up North, it usually does), stitch that.
A spa headband with the host's name is the smaller, warmer version: it lives in their bathroom, and it's the thing they reach for at seven in the morning before anyone else is up.
The bridal shower
Personalized gifts for a bride are where monograms earn their keep, but there's a trap: her initials are about to change. The safe choices are her first-name initial alone, her first name spelled out, or the couple's shared last-name initial if she's taking it. If you're not sure, ask the maid of honor; she knows.
The Monogram Pouch is the shower gift we make most. It's a waffle-weave zippered pouch, monogrammed, that ends up in a suitcase or a tote for years. Order four in matching thread for the bridal party and it becomes a set.
The new home
The gift for a housewarming is one that belongs to the house rather than the people: guest towels, napkins, anything with the family initial or the street name. This is where a single-letter monogram, the last initial, is exactly right. It will still be correct after the children are born and the second dog arrives.
The host who has everything
Bring something they already own, made theirs. If they have the perfect tote, the beloved sweatshirt, the linen napkins from their grandmother, our drop-off service embroiders their own pieces with a name or monogram. It's the gift of noticing what they love, which is rarer than anything you could buy.
Three rules for personalizing a gift
Initials over full names, unless it's a place card. Initials are quieter and outlast nicknames.
Tonal thread when in doubt. White on white, navy on navy. It reads as classic in any house.
Check the spelling twice. Ask the host's partner, or a mutual friend, before you order. A monogram with the wrong middle initial is a very permanent kind of wrong.
Where to start
If you're choosing one gift to keep on hand for the next invitation, make it the wine bag. It suits nearly every host and every occasion, and it's the one that gets carried back to your door, full, a few months later.
Find it here: The BYOB Wine Bag. For the rest, the full collection is embroidered to order in Milwaukee.