Oooooooo this is a tricky one and I’m sure to stir up a few nay-sayers (and that’s ok, I’ve said it before… we don’t all have to agree).
For whatever reason you may have, it’s absolutely okay to not have a gift registry. What I’m not on board with is treating your wedding like a fundraiser to recoup your wedding costs by blatantly asking for cash-only gifts.
If no registry is available for guests to select from, guests that plan to gift you with cash will do so without being asked for it.
There are many polite and subtle ways to ask for a gift that is not a physical item that arrives at your door with a gift receipt and message from your sender.
- Set up an Amazon registry with gift card options. Amazon offers gift cards for just about anything you can imagine! This way, you still have a “registry” to pick from, but you’re able to spend the gift card on exactly what you’d like:
- Date night gift cards: restaurants, movies & activities (StubHub for concert tickets or sporting events!)
- Home renovation/home buying: Home Depot & Lowes both offer gift card options via Amazon
- Wedding Photo Printing: Shutterfly & Walgreens both offer gift card options on Amazon that can be used to print out your beautiful wedding photos or turn them into a wall canvas
- Travel: Airbnb, Southwest, Princess Cruises, Hopper, Holland America, Holtels.com just to name a few… so many travel gift card options on Amazon!
- Honeyfund, Joy, and similar honeymoon registries are a great way to allow guests to contribute to your honeymoon. These sites generally require you to have your honeymoon date, location, etc. set up so that guests can gift you with excursions, meals, spa services, or other activities. Once set up on their site, you can link these to your wedding website just as you would any other registry.
Feel free to borrow this verbiage for your wedding website when it comes to non-traditional gift registries:
Your presence at our wedding is the greatest gift of all! However, if you’d like to honor us with a gift, we would be grateful for contributions toward our _______ (honeymoon, future, home, etc.). We can’t wait to celebrate our big day with you, and we truly appreciate your kindness!
Helping YOU say ‘I-DO’,
Your WedUcator