A Welsh love spoon has always been personal. When a young man carved one for his sweetheart three centuries ago, every symbol was chosen with her in mind, a tradition that Amgueddfa Cymru dates back to the 1660s. That’s still the idea today. Every spoon in our collection is hand-carved in Wales by Paul Curtis, but a few small choices when you order can turn a beautiful spoon into a personalised love spoon that belongs to one person and one moment. Here are three ways to make yours unique.\

Add a traditional engraving

We offer a traditional-style engraving of two initials and a date, in keeping with the way older love spoons were marked. It’s deliberately simple. A carver in the 1700s wasn’t writing paragraphs on a spoon, he was leaving the two letters that mattered and the day they mattered, and that restraint is part of the charm. For a wedding, an engagement or an anniversary, the couple’s initials and the date say everything that needs saying, and they’ll still be legible in fifty years. The engraving costs £6.70 and can be added when you order.

Choose the number

Some designs carry a number, and you decide which one. Our Birthday & Anniversary Welsh Love Spoon is a favourite here. Order it with a 5 for the wooden wedding anniversary, a 25 for silver, or an 18, 21 or 60 for a birthday that deserves more than a card. The number is carved by hand like the rest of the spoon, so it becomes part of the design rather than something added afterwards. There are more ideas in our anniversary collection.

Pick the balls in the cage

The ball in a cage is one of the most intricate and labour-intensive symbols in Welsh love spoon carving, and a carver who managed one was showing real skill. It stands for love held safe, and the number of balls traditionally represents the children in a family, or the children a couple hope to have. On the designs that feature it, such as Bundles of Joy, you choose how many balls sit inside the cage. Two for two children, four for a growing family, and if another arrives later, that’s a very good reason for another spoon.

The finishing touches

Every order comes with a free personalised gift card, and you can add your own message at the checkout. The spoon carries the initials and the symbols, the card carries the rest of the story, and the two are read together for years afterwards.

Because most orders are dispatched within 24 hours, a personalised love spoon doesn’t mean a long wait. If the date is fixed, though, order sooner rather than later, particularly with Christmas already on the horizon. And if you have something more ambitious in mind, send us a design specification and we’ll let you know whether we can take it on. Bespoke work depends on the workshop’s workload at the time, so the earlier you ask, the better.

Ready to start? Browse all our hand-carved Welsh love spoons, or contact us if you’d like a hand choosing the right design.