Hard to buy for: design snob?

My partner and I eloped a few months ago which was wonderful and romantic and fun. Though we went an untraditional route, when we announced to family and friends that we’d gotten married, surprisingly, generously, some people still wanted to buy us gifts. Not having an easy registry, people were left to buy the editor of Urbis and an architect a present of their own devising. This led to yelps of “you’re so hard to buy for!” as they handed us a box.

I heard this with almost every person who gave us something, and made me start to feel terrible. Was this a nice way to tell me I was a design snob, and they assumed I’d be judging their present? Did I come across as a nose-in-air aesthete? Was I a design snob?

Well, yes, I admit I am. With what I choose to spend my own money on, of course I will be (and surely this ‘snobbishness’ is both an unspoken job description for a design editor, as well as an unavoidable hazard of the job). But not with presents. If someone gives you something, you can’t help feel gratitude that they went out of their way to buy you something, that they were thinking of you, that they spent money and time on you. But then, you must admit some presents are just bad. Ugly. Interesting – not in the good way. And then I feel like I’m incorrigibly judgmental all over again.

Maybe I should just embrace my newfound reputation and play design dowager wherever I go, loudly proclaiming, ‘oh, you decided on beige, did you? Hmmm… Well, it suits your personality, I suppose.” A lack of manners is just restyled as eccentricity these days, isn’t it?

On a far more useful note. These cognac glasses available from design denmark are our go-to wedding gift for others if we are feeling rebellious and choose not to buy off the registry. (We use them at home to drink whisky out of, and they feel amazing in the hand.) I spotted this article on twitter this morning about (the closing of) Moss Design in New York, where their registry (for design snobs – I would have fit right in) allowed you to save up for something bigger than linen or homeware. This credit method is starting to take off here too; I know friends received a Tim Webber table through a registry at BoConcept. I’d be excited if I could put money towards the Spar Light from Simon James Design for someone.

What is your idea of the ultimate gift for a designer or the design minded?