How to Ask for Money Instead of Things on your Registry

More and more couples are opting for longer engagements these days. Back in the day, most couples were engaged for 6 months or so before getting married, and most didn’t live together before being married as that was seen as taboo. But now, lots of couples are living together for quite a while before even getting engaged – I’m even one of these couples! John and I were living together for about a year before we got engaged, and by the time of our wedding, we’ll have been engaged for a little more than two years.

Couples like myself are not uncommon, and when you build your home together before the wedding, there are plenty of opportunities to buy your own kitchen appliances. Most traditional registries include blenders, food processors, or even sets of flatware. But when you already own most of these things, you don’t need new ones just because you got married. So if you have all you need, what do you ask for on a registry?

More couples now are opting for cold hard cash, and third party companies are making this easier to do so. Some common ones you’ll see are Honeyfund and Zola. You might be thinking, “Isn’t it tacky to just ask for cash?” And I suppose it could be, but it’s all about how you frame why you’re asking for cash.

For us, we laid out pretty clearly that we already had the physical items that we need on a daily basis, but that we would love contributions to our honeymoon so that we could start out our marriage on a fun and upbeat path. We have a general pot that people can contribute toward, or we have options for guests to buy us specific experiences. For example, we listed out “dinner for two,” or a “couples’ massage,” or even “one night in a resort.” This way, our guests feel like they’re directly contributing to a specific experience we will have. 

Of course, once the money is in your pocket, you can do whatever you want with it, but this way, your guests don’t feel like they’re blindly throwing cash your way. However, for our more relaxed guests who don’t necessarily care what we do with the funds, we have that general pot that they can put their gift toward. I’ve also seen couples do this with down payments for a house so that guests feel like they’re directly helping the couple start their marriage on the right foot.

An added benefit of doing a cash registry instead of an item registry is that you don't have to worry about multiple people buying the same thing by accident. For example, if one person just didn't mark that they bought an item on your registry, so a second person purchased that same item, you don't have to worry about returning anything. If your guests are traveling to get to your wedding, which most of ours are, they don't have to worry about mailing or shipping a physical item, so it’s one less thing for them to worry about. 

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