Thanks to Maryland voters my partner and I are able to get legally married this year.
I have to confess that I’ve never paid much attention to wedding protocol and we’re planning our wedding for a few months from now, so have lots of stuff to do and limited time/expertise.
We plan to have a pretty small registry and are giving folks the option of donating to charity instead since we’ve lived together for several years and don’t want much.
I gather that it’s a serious breach of etiquette to include one’s registry info on the wedding invites. Some Emily Post or Miss Manners website suggested that registry info is supposed to be disseminated at the bridal shower (which isn’t something we’re doing) or is to be spread by word of mouth amongst one’s friends (tricky because of both the timing and the fact that many invitees won’t know each other).
My question: how the heck do you get the registry info to attendees without being tacky? Help!
You know your situation best but I think between your wedding party and family, it should be pretty easy to get the word out. Calling it word of mouth seems a little inaccurate. A guest wants to know where you’re registered so they call up the best man or maid of honor or your brother or mom. If there are people who really don’t know anyone close to you they can always give you money or a gift of their choosing.
You can always answer direct questions honestly, as can your family, man/maid of honor, etc. Most people register at a small handful or well known retailers and guests are not ignorant of this fact. They can usually figure it out for themselves that you are registered at Bed, bath & Beyond, Macy’s and/or Target.
The only way it is possible to tell someone directly where you are registered, without them asking first, is by including the information on an informational website about the wedding that contains many other pieces of information, such as hotel options, information about the venue and directions to it, etc. You cannot talk about registries in an invitation or in any “push” media (anything you send them).
BTW, you are not “giving folks the option” of a charitable donation. They always have that option, or the option of not giving a gift. Gifts are customary at weddings, but they are by no means mandatory.
For me, the “not giving a gift option” is tacit…there are plenty of people invited for whom just traveling to attend this would be a big deal financially*. The two GIFT options would be either charitable donation or a thing we could use.
*And before people pounce on me for inviting people who can’t afford to attend, we’re webcasting it and giving that info on the invite.
We don’t have much in the way of a wedding party…so I suppose we’ll just give info to people if/when they call. I think I had hoped not to have to walk folks through finding our registry on Amazon–we aren’t making it too difficult for folsk to find, but there are certainly some folks on the list who are a bit more technologically challenged.
The editing time has expired on my post above, but as I was replying to Hello Again’s post I did indeed realize the massive logic disconnect between the plan to include registry info on invitations and my statement about realizing people always have the option of NOT giving a gift.
I’m going to chalk that up to us giving ourselves only 4 months’ planning time for the event.
While I’ve also been known to point out the “The first rule of Wedding Registry is you don’t talk about Wedding Registry” rule…it’s something that is changing. Younger people are indeed putting it in with the invitations, and have been for as long as I’ve been receiving them (about 20 years).
So if it’s really going to be stressful, I say just put it in. Generally I see it on a separate little business sized card stuck into the envelope with the invite, the RSVP card, the return envelope and a map to the place, if you’re including one.
If you have guests scattered around the country, you might want to register on Amazon. The Druidess and I did that.
As for how to publicize that info, we did the word of mouth thing via the planned wedding party. Of course, shortly thereafter, our chosen venue was largely destroyed in a flood of biblical proportions, so we cancelled the big wedding and got married in the courtroom of my home county, with only my parents present. I doubt our handling of the registry issue was directly responsible for the flood, but one never knows…
As a guest, I hate this etiquette rule. I’d much rather the registry information be included with the invitation, then having to make calls and search all over the place to figure out who knows what. And I’m a grumpy 44 year old. That said, I think I’d post something about registering at Amazon on Facebook or your personal page somewhere. That way, you’re just talking about things that go into the making of the wedding, not shilling for gifts (like the Miss Manners crowd always deems it). Congratulations!
It is frowned upon to include the registry information with the invitation because that makes it seem like you expect a gift from your guests. They are under no obligation to buy you a present, and indeed it seems that you have no particular preference whether or not they buy you gifts. Do not include it in your invitation, because people tend to assume (especially people who may not be able to attend) that you “expect” a gift in return. Please.
Your wedding is not the first that people will attend, and they probably won’t need you to hold their hand to figure it out. If you are having a webcast of your wedding, do you have a wedding website as well? (Try wedsite.com or The Knot.) It is OK to include registry information on wedding websites, as well as all kinds of other extraneous information like hotels in the area (or booking information if you have a block of rooms), nearby attractions, how to get from the ceremony to reception site if necessary, menu information, blah blah blah. (Along with whatever else you want to put on–how we met, how he or she proposed, why you’re getting married at Location X, etc.)
Otherwise, make sure your friends and family know, and answer anyone’s questions directly. But your guests will probably assume that you’re registered at Macy’s/Bed Bath and Beyond/Target, guess accordingly, or ask someone.
That’s a good idea. And you might register at Williams-Sonoma, Bed Bath & Beyond or Macy’s. (For some of the recent weddings I’ve found the registries on my own, just by searching these websites for the couple’s names.)
I get what you’re saying, but weighing your mild inconvenience against making someone feel they aren’t welcome without a gift, I do think “traditional manners” have the right of it in this case.
As a guest, I make it a rule never to attend the wedding of anyone I don’t know well enough to call, email, or FaceBook message and say “So, what’s the deal with the registry situation?” It takes less time than you spent writing that post, so I honestly don’t get why people carry on like it’s some huge onerous burden. I mean, you’re (the general you) willing to spend several damn hours at the wedding, plus travel, but you can’t spend 45 seconds asking somebody a quick question?
But considering someone upthread said that the etiquette on this send to be changing, perhaps there is lots more people that feel this way? And I don’t understand why that feeling couldn’t be allayed by the inclusion of “The only thing the couple requests as a gift is your presence.” notation. Not to mention, I’ve always thought the whole thing is bizarre in its cloak and dagger like game of who to ask and who can’t say so out loud and stuff. The contortions are, in my opinion, what is the most ridiculous. Regardless, I really don’t care what people do over this and I don’t want to keep highjacking the discussion. I’m not really at prime wedding-going age anymore anyway.
ETA: I think that addresses both posts. Pure silliness, if you ask me. I’m all about the practicality and not doing not kowtowing to how things have always been done just because, well, that’s the way things have always been done. Heh.
I think gift giving for a wedding is so ingrained as part of the custom in mainstream American culture, that this whole thing is a ridiculous farce. Of course you’re expected to bring a gift. You know it, I know it, the people of the wedding industry know it (they’ll even kindly provide us a suggested dollar amount that we spend for our gifts). So why don’t we just stop pretending it’s not expected? Face it, weddings where gifts of some sort - object, money, donation - would be offensive and unwanted are so rare as to be nonexistent. I don’t need to be told whether or not I should bring a gift, I need to be told what sort of gift would be most appreciated.
I don’t see how putting registry information in an invite is a gift grab when, let’s face it, the whole notion of having a traditional wedding and reception is a gift grab. If you don’t want (not just don’t care if you get gifts, but actively don’t want) gifts, have a dinner party and surprise everyone with the arrival of a priest. And you’re STILL going to get presents shipped to you later, because that’s what people, by and large, do. They give gifts when you get married.
Putting registry information in an invite is considerate and thoughtful, sparing the invited the time and hassle of playing phone tag with your mother (assuming they even know how to reach her.)
(And I should add that I’ve been married twice, and never sent a single invitation or got a traditional gift, so this isn’t my guilty conscience talking.)
Whether or not gifts are expected, it is still tacky to put it on the invitation. It just is. Quoth The Knot, the monolithic site that covers everything wedding-related:
With regards to the perceived “cost” of an invitation:
I must also strongly disagree with the idea that a “traditional wedding is a gift grab.” I have worked with hundreds of brides personally, and several hundred more peripherally, and I can literally count on one hand the number of brides who have expressed a lot of excitement over “all the gifts we’re gonna get!” And for heaven’s sake, there is nothing wrong with calling the bride or groom themselves–they can answer the question just as well as anybody else.
I went to a wedding this past summer where the invitation included a web address to their personal web page. It was nicely done with a few pictures of the bride and groom as well as pics of the wedding party, directions to the venue for the ceremony, links to nearby hotels, and a link to the places they had registered.
That’s what I did when I got married. Can’t put registry info on the invitation, but the website is totally okay. We also put the website on our save-the-date cards, which we used primarily because everyone except for the bride, groom, and groom’s immediate family were from out of town, including out of state and out of country guests. It was to give them a really early heads up that there was going to be a wedding in a place they’d probably never visited.
That said, I think I’d post something about registering at Amazon on Facebook or your personal page somewhere. That way, you’re just talking about things that go into the making of the wedding, not shilling for gifts (like the Miss Manners crowd always deems it). Congratulations!