Give the gift of pre-planned dates

You know all those times when you need to get a gift for a couple, but you’re just not sure what to get them? This happens to me a lot. Every idea I think of is weighted in favor of one person and I know their spouse won’t be all that excited about it. When I give gifts to couples for weddings and other occasions, I try my best to give them something they can enjoy together…bonus points if it is personalized!

After much brainstorming and deliberation, I created this gift basket of twelve pre-planned dates for my brother and his bride. I filled two cute baskets (from their registry) with all sorts of items that corresponded with twelve date ideas. I had so much fun creating this gift!

First, I’m going to give you a photo tour of the date ideas I included. After the tour, I’ll give you a rundown of how to make your own gift basket of pre-planned dates. And, when you get to the end of this post, you will find a download link for free PDF printables and Silhouette cut files for the gift tags. Feel free to completely replicate my date ideas, or go wild and create your own (leave me a comment and I will even help you write up a clever rhyme to go with your date ideas).

Before we start the tour, a couple things to note: 1) I focused on giving practical items to correspond with each date rather than cutesy things that weren’t actually useful, 2) I worked to keep this gift basket within a reasonable budget so most of the items are very affordable, and 3) enjoy the awesome-sauce rhymes I dreamed up for each gift tag. Alrighty, let’s take a look:

Date 1: Ice Cream Sundaes – fancy looking jars of caramel and fudge ice cream toppings

Date 2: Roasting S’mores – Hershey’s chocolate

Date 3: Pumpkin Carving – Stencils of mouths, eyes, noses, and eye brows

Date 4: Game Night – A little book filled with instructions for card games

Date 5: Christmas Light Tour – A box of hot cocoa

Date 6: Time For Fondue – A fondue recipe and wooden skewers

Date 7: Movie Night – Boxed candy

Date 8: Make Your Own Pizza – A boxed pizza kit with all the necessary ingredients included

Date 9: Let’s Go Bowling (I failed and didn’t end up with a physical item for this tag. So I just tucked it in the basket by its lonesome. My bad.)

Date 10: Take Family Pictures – A nice picture frame with a gift certificate for a free family photo shoot taken by me

Date 11: Enjoy Wine & Cheese – A bottle of wine and two stemless wine glasses

Date 12: Couple’s Choice Date Night – A gift certificate for free babysitting while they go on their date

I am so happy with how this gift turned out! I received many compliments from wedding guests, and they were all curious to peek in the baskets and see what the twelve dates were. Do you want to make your own basket of pre-planned gifts? Here’s the easy-peasy steps:

1) Brainstorm – make a list with two columns: one for the date idea, and the second for ideas of objects/items that could go with each date.

2) Finalize The List – read through your list and narrow it down to the top twelve (or however many dates you want to include)

3) Go Shopping – head to the store and pick up the objects/items you need, along with some sort of basket or container that they will fit in

4) Create Gift Tags – make up cute gift tags for each date and attach them to the corresponding item. I used a rustic card stock for my tags and attached them with a thin twine.

5) Arrange The Basket – display everything neatly in the basket. This may take some trial and error to get everything to fit just right. I balled up some tissue paper so give some height to some of the items in the back of the baskets.

I think these gift baskets turned out darling! You could give this same thing for weddings, bridal showers, anniversaries, Christmas, and much more. I did my best to brainstorm a variety of fun date ideas that wouldn’t break the bank. Of course, you could get much more elaborate and include movie passes, concert tickets, and restaurant gift cards if you wanted to give something with a higher dollar value.

All in all, this is a pretty simple gift idea that you can personalize to fit the recipients’ interests. Now, since you’re such amazing readers, I’m giving you a free download of the gift tag files. For those who have a Silhouette, you can download the Silhouette files. For everyone else, you can download the printable pdf and then cut out the gift tags with a scissors or exacto knife.

> Download the Silhouette files

> Download the free printable pdf

P.S. If you decide to create your own dates and need help coming up with cute rhymes, leave me a comment and I’ll help you out. I love writing corny rhymes!!!