Wedding Registry and Gifts

[AwayWeGo]

Hey Ladies, wondering if anyone has some good suggestions about this topic. We will not be registering anywhere for our wedding for a couple of reasons, one we don't want any gifts from our guests as them traveling with us to the wedding is such a great gift to begin with. Despite this, we have still had some people who are and are not coming ask us what we want for our wedding and where we are going to register. One of the other reasons we don't want to register is that we are a well established couple and already have everything that we need for our household, etc.

 

What would you suggest doing in these cases? If anything, we would appreciate a donation towards our family's future, however don't feel right saying so.

 

Thanks for your input!

[Peach]

Have you thought about registering for your honeymoon or to go towards your travel?

 

We are realizing quickly that we need to register; for the shower, plus we have guests that are going to be buying us stuff anyway. We have been living together for a long time and are quite established. However, we know people are going to buy us stuff, so we would rather it be specific things we do not have or need replacing.

 

You could always include a note in your invitation or as part of your wedding website that says that requests no gifts. If people still want to bring you something, maybe it will be gift cards or $ anyway.

 

You could also tell a couple people - bms for example - about your wishes, and they may be able to explain better when people ask them.

[merrylee]

We realized also that the shower and gifts are not always about you.  It is about your family and friends wanting to be a part of your future in some way.  We asked that people donate to our favorite charity or they could go and buy us something if that is what they choose.  We'd prefer the charity since our friends lost their 2.5 year old to this disease, but we can't make people do it.  

 

But I agree you can register for your honeymoon or your travel to the wedding.

[Peach]

I think the charity is a totally wonderful idea!
 

Originally Posted by merrylee 

We realized also that the shower and gifts are not always about you.  It is about your family and friends wanting to be a part of your future in some way.  We asked that people donate to our favorite charity or they could go and buy us something if that is what they choose.  We'd prefer the charity since our friends lost their 2.5 year old to this disease, but we can't make people do it.  

 

But I agree you can register for your honeymoon or your travel to the wedding.

 

[JonesM]

 

If you have everything and don't want guests to bring anything for you on your wedding day just announce that you are not registered anywhere and you don’t want them to bring gifts as there presence is itself a gift for you.........
But if still some guests wants to bring something then all you can do is just tell them to bring small gifts like wine bottle......

[hollygowedding]

I'm using MyRegistry.com and you can register for gifts and cash on the same registry. I'd suggest doing a small physical registry 

with a few upgrades or whatever and then having a cash gift fund called, just as you said "Future family fund"

[summerbride2012]

Hey! I think a honeymoon registry is a great idea - or any sort of non-traditional registry. We used http://www.wanderable.com/pages/honeymoon_registry which is a free and pretty site, with no ads. It lets you put in whatever you want, so we did include a few traditional items to our registry, and also an area for donation. Unfortunately, it doesn't go directly into the charity, but whatever was given specifically to a charity, we made sure to donate after. 

[Brenners]

We have had the same issue.  We registered online for four charities of our choosing and posted it on our wedding website.  However, people are still asking us to register for gifts.  We are also an established couple so we don't need much.  Sure there are always items that you would like to have, but nothing that we can't live without.  Most of my family won't be at our DW so I think this is their way to make themselves feel better about not going - they can afford it but choose not to go so if they give us presents then they can feel better.  I have a feeling that we will need to register for gifts but really hope that people will put that money toward our charities instead.  Good luck!

 

[summerbride2012]

We're doing a honeymoon registry on: http://www.wanderable.com/pages/honeymoon_registry - which is really good. It's free, stylish and unlike Honeyfund, it's got no ads (without needing the upgraded version). It's definitely worth a look. Also if you do end up doing something like this, keep in mind the etiquette - depending what kind of people you know, not everyone takes these things in stride. My sister used it for her wedding and that went really well, but some people get insulted you're asking them for money. So be wary with how you go about this. Look up lots of tips for etiquette. 

[lovepea]

We are getting married on a cruise and thankfully the cruiseline offers a registry that those who insist that they must buy us a gift can choose an item from there.  It helps us with the honeymoon and those that feel they must get us a gift can choose something they think we will enjoy.  In the end, we really just get the funds to use as we wish on the cruise or get as cash to come home with.  Either way, it makes it easier to deal with for us.