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Registry and Gift Forum
Knottie0969996
member
Gift registry & Wishing well
Hi all
We are beginning to look at gift registries for our upcoming wedding. However, whilst we are based in our current location, we know in the next year we will move abroad for graduate schooling. As a result, we don't want to have to store gifts that we may not see for 3 - 5 years, perhaps longer! And so we feel it would be more appropriate to add an option for guests to leave a money donation if they like instead. We won't force either, we will just provide the options on our website. But our close friends and family members know that money would likely be more suitable for our situation.
Does anybody have any ideas for how to do this wishing well option? I was thinking there is a service like a gift registry, where you could just click on a link and the guest can choose the amount to deposit, and it all goes to a selected account of our choosing? Is this possible?
Thanks for your advice!
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Re: Gift registry & Wishing well
If you don't register, decline any showers offered as showers are for physical gifts.
"Registering" for cash is crass and rude.
If you don't want physical gifts, don't register and decline any showers. If people want to give you money, they will put cash in an envelope or write you a check. There is no need to mention it or word anything anywhere.
Also, please stop referring to gifts as donations. Donations are for charities. Your wedding does not make you a charitable organization.
1) It's rude to ask for money or to assume that people will be getting you a gift, period.
2) Those services take a cut of the money and are deceptive. I can write you a check for 100 dollars of my own free will because I'm a smart person and recognize that cash is a good gift always, or you can get 93 dollars by specifically telling me you want cash and having me go through your service.
People know cash is a good gift. Don't register and they'll get the hint. They can figure out how to reach for the checkbooks and write you a check or hit up an ATM machine without you telling them. If anyone asks where you are registered, just politely say "We didn't register. We're moving abroad next year for graduate school next year and don't need anything." They'll get it.
The same way they give cash as gifts all the other times...by writing out a check or obtaining cash from a bank or ATM and giving it to you. They either tuck it into a card and mail it to you or put it in your hand. You then take those checks to your bank and deposit them into your account.
Have you seriously never had a family member send you a check or a ten or twenty dollar bill in your birthday card? This is not a new or difficult concept - people will figure it out. People have been giving money as gifts for decades before paypal or money registries ever existed.
You should set up a card box or some other sort of card holder on the gift table. (Not a money jar or wishing well.) A lot of people will mail you a card or mail a check with their RSVP, but people who gift money at the wedding will usually stick it in a card.
People drop it off when they come in. Depending on security, you may want to have it moved to a secure place once all the guests have arrived. If anyone hands you a card or cash during the reception, you put it in your bag or have your new H put it in his pocket.
People have been giving money at weddings since long before the invention of the internet.