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1st Time Older Bride and Registering for Gifts...

ShellD13ShellD13 member
Fourth Anniversary 100 Love Its 100 Comments Name Dropper
in 40-Plus Brides
Hi All -

My FI and I are having a very small wedding.  Mostly because we are trying to avoid a lot of hassle with his ex-wife but also because I'm older and this is his second wedding, a large traditional wedding didn't really seem appropriate/fitting for us.  We are only inviting our parents, his children and a couple of other very close family members - 20 in all.  But I have a huge family (4 sisters, 3 brothers) and we both have a very large circle of close friends and acquaintances.  Many of whom while they know they aren't invited to the wedding have already started asking me about registry stuff.

The other factor is because of our age/stage of life - FI and I have everything we need or want for our home.  I don't want to be gift grabby but I would far rather give people ideas of things we need/want/will use vs. not giving them any direction at all and ending up with stuff that won't get used.  So I created a wedding registry for items that we need to outfit a camper that we bought last year to use for family vacations.

But in lurking on other boards here at the Knot, I get the feeling that registering for non-household items and or having a large registry when you are having a small wedding is a is a huge breach of etiquette.

Did any of you ladies experience similar dilemmas about registering?  I'll be 39 when we get married and have lived independently for almost 20 years - I have dishes, knives, pots and pans etc...
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Re: 1st Time Older Bride and Registering for Gifts...

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] member
    2500 Comments Fifth Anniversary 500 Love Its 5 Answers

    No reason you can't register even though you are having a small private wedding, especially if people are asking. This way you will get things you can use/want. When registering also thing of things that you want to update. Like is there anything in your kitchen that if you could update would be retired to the camper?

    In regards to registering for non household items shouldn't be an issue. It's not like your asking people to pay for your honeymoon or buy you a new car. You are putting things down that you will use and to me that is what matters. So what if it's a set of outdoor chairs you use at the camper. You will use them & appreciate having them. I had friends do that too, they wanted to get into camping with their kids and so they used their wedding registery as a way to do that.

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  • hutchslhutchsl member
    Sixth Anniversary 100 Comments 25 Love Its
    I agr with PP. I was 49 when i married (my first). DH had been married before. We opted not to register (but we were not aked by people). We had a larger wedding and preferred people come celebrate with us So on our wedding website we said that attending our wedding (since everyone had to travel at keast a couple of hours) could be their present. But if they needed ideas we could use servng dishes for entertaining.. e only returned one gift (really an exchange for a buffet server). Older people understand that couples may have the necesary thins but may lke to get something special for you.
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  • Fairyjen1Fairyjen1 member
    250 Love Its 100 Comments Second Anniversary Name Dropper
         We are in the same situation. I am over 40, first wedding. It's fi's second. We have everything we need to set up house. We are having an immediate family only wedding, but in my family it's tradition for aunts, uncles and cousins to send small gifts. I don't expect it, but I did set up a small registry at Macy's with some things that would fill in things we don't have. Mostly serving dishes and sheets and towels. We won't advertise we have a registry but it's there if anyone asks.

        The other reason is for the star registry rewards and the completion discount. Even if no one gets us a gift I want to take advantage of those. 
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  • vh2014vh2014 member
    100 Comments 25 Love Its Name Dropper
    We are also the same.  We registered at Target, Home Depot, and Amazon.  We just combined households and we are both 40+ so we have 2 households worth of stuff already that we just finished getting rid of the excess. So we picked things for our recently remodeled bathroom, deck, and yard games.  We've had several friends tell us that they LOVED that we registered at Home Depot (especially his guy friends LOL).  

    We haven't put it on anything but it seems so common place that everyone asks where we are registered. We tried to pick registries that would make everyone happy... Target for in store, Amazon for the internet, and Home Depot for, well, our friends that love hardware stores.   We've told everyone we just want their smiling faces, but realistically we know that some of our friends and relatives wouldn't be comfortable showing up to anything empty handed (my one aunt has to bring a dish regardless of how much food we tell her we have at a family function) so might as well let them know what we'd enjoy... and like @Fairyjen1, I put some things on the Target registry just for the completion discount later. 
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  • mrsmagicgeekmrsmagicgeek member
    500 Love Its 100 Comments First Answer Name Dropper
    We weren't even planning to register anywhere for many of the same reasons you all have listed: we're having a small private ceremony, and we already have the usual household stuff. I hadn't even thought about discounts, now I'm going to have to do some research!
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