Wedding Registry Etiquette

Wedding registries - past and present

Wedding registries were originally designed with two goals in mind: #1 to help you get set up in your new home together, and #2 to sell a lot of china and expensive kitchen gadgets you'd NEVER buy if it was your own money :-)

In the 21st century, most newlyweds have been living away from their parents for some time--which means if you liked making toast, you'd have bought a toaster long ago.  So you don't need one as a wedding gift.  On top of that, the wedding guest is going to spend their hard-earned money on a gift for you--and they'd really like to think that their gift meant something special to you, and you'd remember it forever.

Can we ask for cash?

Many wedding couples ask how they can politely ask their guests for gifts of cash.  The answer is: you can't.  If the gift is nothing but cash, you're taking away from them the opportunity to express their joy and love for the two of you in what they choose to give, and that's not fair to them.  But I'll suggest that these couples are really asking the wrong question.  Instead, they should be asking what their guests could give them instead of the boring appliances and china that they neither want nor need.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a co-founder of TheBigDay honeymoon registry service--and so I'll readily admit I'm biased towards gifts that are experiences rather than "stuff".  But there are many other kinds of gifts you can register for that both you AND the gift-giver can get excited about.  Especially if you and the gift-giver share a passion or hobby that's related to the gift...camping gear....art...a really special bottle of wine or champagne...etc.

But honeymoon registries is what I know best--having helped over 50,000 couples over the past 7 years--and so let me explain by using a honeymoon registry as an example.

Honeymoon Registry

First off, your wedding guests will likely expect you to pay for the core of your honeymoon yourself, i.e. air, hotel, and rental car.  You probably have a few very close family members--parents or grandparents usually--who are going to give you a pretty large ($-wise) gift, and for these folks, hotel nights or airfare might be appropriate.  But, I'd put these items way at the bottom of your registry, and focus instead on individual, add-on experiences.  By experiences, I mean things like: a motu picnic in Tahiti; a couple's massage at the hotel's spa; a romantic dinner at a specific restaurant; a half-day jet-skiing; a snorkel trip; breakfast in bed; champagne and flowers in the room; etc.  What makes a great gift is something you'll remember fondly forever--and often, something you'd take a picture of and put in your photo album (and share with them in your thank-you note).

What's NOT appropriate is a gift of "$100 towards our honeymoon".  That's just cash, and that takes all the fun and romance out of it for your wedding guests....and makes it all about how much they spent on you.  Ewwwww.

Getting the word out

So now you've got a ton of great ideas for your honeymoon registry--how do you let people know about it gracefully?

Anything that says "hi, we're getting married, and here's where you can buy us a gift" is tacky.  That's why in general you shouldn't include registry cards in your invites.  (It's considered OK to include registry cards in bridal shower invitiations--that's because typically they're coming from the maid of honor, so you're not the one doing the asking.)  But keeping your registry a secret from your wedding guest kind of defeats the purpose...so how do you solve this?

The 21st century answer lies in:  the personal wedding website. This is where you tell everyone everything about your wedding:  not just the details of the ceremony and the reception (along with the usual Google maps links, driving directions, local hotel links, etc.), but also the story of how you met, the proposal, info about your wedding party members that not all of the guests will already have met, etc.  An online RSVP is often included on your website, and also...somewhere subtle...a registry page.

Now, you can tell all of your wedding guests about your wedding website--they'll discover the registry there, but you're not shoving it in their face.  You can include a card with your wedding website address (not your registry website!) with your invitations; you can send "Save the Date" e-postcards with the website in them, etc.  There are a ton of options for wedding websites--simple ones are often free; ones with elaborate design templates and lots of options and pages generally cost a little money (e.g. $10 a month, or $50 to $200 one-time fee).  Or you can build your own from scratch using something like Blogspot (a number of TheBigDay's customers have done this).