The Gift You’ll Really Want When You Get Engaged

It’s definitely wedding attending season, but it’s also one of the best times of year to host or plan your engagement party. People get engaged ALL YEAR LONG, and now that we’re starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel - in the ‘we can start seeing our favorite people again without 6+ feet of distance between us’ kind of way - late summer, early fall is the perfect time period to occasion your just-married merriment. And along with our friends at Freshly, we’ve come up with the greatest gift idea for soonly-weds. It’s not a wedding planning book or a ring dish, it’s not personalized toasting flutes or ‘Congrats!’ candles, even though they’re always tried and true faves. Nope, it’s something totally unexpected, but, nevertheless, poised to be appreciated: fresh, chef-cooked meals delivered straight to your door.

Planning a wedding really throws a wrench in meal planning

Your future best day ever will definitely involve equally best-ever-level food, but while you’re in the trenches of tying the knot, you’ll find that eating right and making time for your meals is tough stuff. Sure, being engaged means a lot more champagne to keep your fridge stocked, but even more important than bubbly is well-balanced nutrition, variety, and sustenance. You’re not training for a marathon with all the wedding prep, but we wouldn’t say it’s any less stressful or time-consuming. You’ll need ALL the energy to make it to the finish line with your nuptials.

The Gift Youâll Really Want When You Get Engaged

5 reasons why Freshly comes in clutch when you’re getting hitched

Your lunch hour looks a lot different when you’re a fiancé/fiancée.

Even if you’ve always been eating at your desk (or at home, however your work-life is going these days!) to multitask and get as much done as possible, you’ll probably want to log a little time vetting wedding venues and setting up site visits, researching vendors, scheduling fittings, etc. so getting your lunch in order and fueling up for the rest of the day is something you’ll want to cover off on quickly. With Freshly, all you need to do is whip your portion out of the refrigerator, heat it in the microwave (or skillet or oven, whatever makes most sense for your situation), and then enjoy a beautifully-imagined one-person meal in minutes.

Your nights are stacked with appointments, after hours.

Again, being engaged is a truly amazing thing, but planning a wedding isn’t easy, it takes time and tests your patience (all good things do, don’t they?). Whether you have to sit down with your ‘I do’ decision makers (parents or whoever else may be contributing, financially, to your wedding), scout out wedding vendors in action (at wedding fairs, vendor showcases, and the like), or meet up with your wedding planner or venue coordinator to discuss all the nitty-gritty pre-event logistics, you’ll be doing a lot after work and into your once-was down time. Instead of grabbing something on the way or ordering takeout on your way home, you and your S.O. can carve out time to decompress and eat dinner together - something that’s delicious and nutritious every time.

Your usual meal prep process gets put on the back burner.

Not to say that when you’re gearing up for a wedding ALL of your time has to be dedicated to it - but when you’re in the beginning and crunch-time, X days to-go stages of planning, you’ll feel the biggest impact on your life, as you used to know it. If you spent a sizable segment of your weekend doing meal prep before, you might not have it now or you might just want to spend the time you do have doing other things. Like napping. Going to brunch. Hanging out with friends. Working out. That’s why having someone else figure it out for you is a total gamechanger. It’s actually one of Freshly’s taglines - “We do the cooking, you do you” - and exactly what you need to hear when you’re organizing the biggest event in your life thus far and just can’t with everything else.

Your diet gets sidetracked.

We’ve always said that the whole “shedding for the wedding” mantra needs to go far, far away - but we get it, when you’re planning a wedding, how you look and, more importantly, how you feel on the special day is a major priority. Every bride and groom wants to be their best self on the day they say ‘I do.’ So, instead of throwing some nuts, a banana, and a meal replacement bar into your bag in the morning and bailing on lunch and dinner, prioritize your wellness with nourishing meals that taste great, fill you up, and leave you feeling energized. With Freshly, it means balanced, flavorful, better-for-you meals right to your door - complex carbs, nutrient-dense ingredients, quality proteins, healthy fats, everything you need, really.

The brand also recently added a new menu item called FreshlyFit to its epicurean-minded repertoire. These meals are great for those counting macros… (and notice how we didn’t say calories).

The Gift Youâll Really Want When You Get Engaged

Your palette can use some cleansing.

Back to our earlier point about your wedding and great food. What you eat on your big day and what you serve your guests is a big deal. You want everyone to leave and remember all the amazing things they were able to taste and experience, but tbh, a lot of times that's really just familiar flavors that don’t pack enough punch to be considered much beyond that night. That’s why you’ll want to use your engagement to enrich your palette, try new things, get inspired by flavors that can feature in your wedding fare. Freshly just launched a limited-edition menu with celebrity chefs Jet Tila, Kwame Onwuachi, Sean Brock, and Kristen Kish, offering ready-to-eat, restaurant-style dinners that showcase each chef’s unique style and background. And while you probably won’t have these chefs creating magic behind the scenes at your wedding, you can still get a taste for their signature cuisines and bring some exciting menu ideas to the table (when you’re meeting with caterers or consulting the chefs at your venue).