Private Wedding, Public Reception - OK to register?

kmcgaughey08

If my fiance and I want to avoid all the pageantry that goes along with getting married. If we are planning a private ceremony that will have no guests (we're tying the knot in private in New Zealand!) is it rude to register for gifts? We are having a party/reception when we get back. What would you do? Thanks all!

photokitty

Private ceremony with no guests and an at home party to celebrate - it's fine to register. But do not mention the registry on the party invites. Let people ask you (or close family members) or find it on their own - if they want to get you a gift they will ask or find it themselves. GL!

MyNameIsNot

Registering is fine.  If people want to get a gift, they'll ask you.  If they don't, they don't ever need to know you had a registry.

You didn't ask, but as long as we're talking about gifts, you should avoid a shower in this case.  

kmcgaughey08

Yea, I wouldn't ever permit a shower or draw attention the fact that we're registered. Part of avoiding all the pageantry.

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Blue_Bird

I don't understand registering for an event you're not inviting anyone to. Sorry. The Party later is just a party, not a wedding reception.

RebeccaB88

Yeah, you could, but I wouldn't.  The party isn't about your wedding because you aren't inviting anyone to your ceremony, and people don't register for parties. If people want to get you a gift they still can, or if they ask you can tell them what you're saving up for.

kannf1982

We are doing the same.  My aunt really wants to throw a shower so thanks to some suggestions on here, she is doing like a "bring your favorite recipe and a bottle of wine" type thing so it's still shower-y but people aren't spending a lot of money on gifts for me. Even though we're having two receptions (our two families live 8 hours apart), and a separate more booze-oriented cocktail "party" for friends (such as my fiancé's entire rugby team), we are not registering anywhere.  We are happy to be able to getting married privately in a beautiful locale while also accomodating 300 guests in SOME manner, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional wedding+honeymoon.  I wouldn't worry about registering anywhere.  

Now, I have heard that some people have done that and then ended up with some cranky relatives who are insistent on giving a gift but aren't happy about the lack of registry.  To that I say, you can't please everyone.  These days people can go on the knot.com and look up your name so if you're registered anywhere, they'll find it....so I am not about to register one place for the couple of cranky relatives who want me to and then mislead everyone into thinking that gifts are actually an unsaid expectation. 

lyndausvi

I don't see a problem with registering with the intention that is nothing more than a wish list that people can look at if they so choose.  I would not "advertise" so-to-speak or put it in an invitation, but if someone wants to search they can find it.   

I received some gifts from people who were not invited to our wedding off our registry.  Some of them came after the wedding, so it was obviously they truly wanted to give us a gift even though they were not invited to the wedding.

vt&dt

kannf1982 said:

We are doing the same.  My aunt really wants to throw a shower so thanks to some suggestions on here, she is doing like a "bring your favorite recipe and a bottle of wine" type thing so it's still shower-y but people aren't spending a lot of money on gifts for me. Even though we're having two receptions (our two families live 8 hours apart), and a separate more booze-oriented cocktail "party" for friends (such as my fiancé's entire rugby team), we are not registering anywhere.  We are happy to be able to getting married privately in a beautiful locale while also accomodating 300 guests in SOME manner, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional wedding+honeymoon.  I wouldn't worry about registering anywhere.  

Wait a second... how many wedding receptions/parties? How are you getting married privately and having 300 guests?  

princessleia22

My thinking is that registries are more for the convenience of your guests than your yourself.  Yes, some people use them as a gift grabby wishlist and ask for every expensive item in the world, like cars, new houses, $5000 TV systems with surround sound, X-Box, whatever.  But, it doesn't have to be that way. We are having a small wedding, are older (mid 30's & early 40's), have been living together for 5 years, so have most of what we need. So we were going to skip the registry.  But, we had a few people ask about registry and one mentioned that they want to give us gifts to help celebrate and contribute to our future and the registry helps make sure they get us things that we can actually use and are helpful to us.  So, we decided to put a couple registries together after all.  Most of the items are smaller, less expensive gifts. We aren't telling everyone or including anything in invites, but it is there if they ask.