Wedding registries - how to ask for money and not ask for money...

There's a lot of etiquette in wedding registries that if you're not careful, you'll end up stepping squarely onto one of those land mines.

First, you're not supposed to include where you're registered in the wedding invitations. Very well. If so, then how do your generous wedding guests know where you're registered to get you what you want? You don't want them to going from one store to the next asking if you're registered there. And you certainly don't want them to just take a guess and end up with a hundred gravy boats. The traditional or conventional way was for the guests to ask the parents or those in the wedding party where you're registered. That's a lot of phone calls and a bit of a burden on those you're already relying on for your wedding.

Fortunately, the Web has a nice solution. Many people, my wife and I included, put up an informational page that informs wedding guests of the details of the wedding like time, place, hotel accomodations, etc. You can also post photos, tell the story of how you met, and, to the point of this post, where you're registered. This informs your guest without them having to ask. You just include the URL for your website in your wedding invitation.

Putting together this web site is a lot easier than it sounds, even for you Luddites. If you're brave or are familiar with web sites, you can register your own domain and create your own site. If you want to go the easier route, lots of companies like The Wedding Channel or mywedding.com allows you to create your own mini-site on their site.

Second, you want to ask for money but the consensus is that's deemed crass. I'll save that for another post. So, how do you ask for money without asking for money. You can do what people normally do...you register for a bunch of stuff, return it for store credit, and use that store credit for later whenever they need something. It's not really money but it's almost the same thing. The ironic thing is that you could use that store credit to buy some gift for one of your guest's events...so you're kind of re-gifting but not really re-gifting! :)

At WeddingFutures.com, you can register for a portfolio of stocks. Your wedding guests able to make purchases from your registry with their credit card or paypal account. With the funds in your wedding registry, you're able to either take the money and run or actually buy the stocks you registered for.

In the end, it's a win-win-win situation - your parents and wedding party don't have to answer questions about where you're registered, your guests have an easy way to purchase your wedding gift, and most importantly, you get the gifts that will really help your marriage.

- keaton