Wedding grift

September 3, 2009 8:00 AM

My fiancee and I are getting married next year, and since money is tight, we thought it would be a good idea to get the guests to contribute to paying for our honeymoon rather than buying material things. What is the best way to set this up?

I was thinking of setting up a website and then having a PayPal option, but it looks like PayPal will take a 3.4% + £0.20 commission, which would be painful!

There are other websites I know of that allow donations etc... but these seem to be American only, and for charitable activities (rather than selfish, decadent ones!)

Any thoughts oh great MeFiMind?

posted by Saddo to human relations (34 comments total)

If you're referring to actual guests of the wedding, couldn't they just give you cash or checks? Or, perhaps you could set up a bank account, as is done when people are seeking donations for victims of a disaster, etc.

Also, not part of your question per se, but I would find being asked to pay for someone else's vacation sort of tacky.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 8:04 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

Simple word of mouth that you don't need any material possesions. Don't put it on your invites, STD's or anything formal.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:05 AM on September 3

We indicated that we didn't have a registry at all and got over 2000 in cash and checks. So there's always that.
posted by muddgirl at 8:06 AM on September 3

There's no real way to do this without coming across poorly. Word of mouth, as room317 said, is pretty much your only option.

If you're committed to doing it anyway, I don't see any need for an online option -- people who are going to give would rather hand you a check and a card than enter their Visa number on a website. I think.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 8:08 AM on September 3

Muddgirl has the answer if you want to do this without looking outright tacky. At least in the US, people will default to a cash gift if they don't know what to get you. What I don't know is how people in the UK will react to not having a gift registry to reference.
posted by COD at 8:09 AM on September 3

Um . . . this seems like it's bordering on rude for some reason. A lot of people probably won't indulge you.

When I got married, funds were tight as well. Our solution was to stay in a modest hotel for 2 days. Wheeee! We had our real honeymoon 6 months later, once we were able to afford it. We had a great time!

So, if you want . . . perhaps on the invitations you could ask for monetary donations for a later honeymoon. Don't be surprised if you still get 5 blenders though. Anyway, this way people have a longer time to donate. Otherwise, I can see you having absolutely no money for the honeymoon because people won't be giving you "their" gift until the day of the wedding/reception.
posted by Sassyfras at 8:10 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

I don't know if there are any non-US ones, but there are sites called "honeymoon registries" that basically do this. Guests can pay for specific events/meals/tours, etc.

With the ones friends have used, you get to define the events and the cost, and the site just sends you a check. The gifts aren't actually committed to the events you define, you just get a lump sum.

Pro: it allows a little more personalization than a check. "Thanks for buying us the snorkel trip."

Con: I think that the website takes a percentage.

I don't think that these are the end of the world etiquette wise, just make sure to write your thank-you notes. ;)
posted by mercredi at 8:12 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

Some people will want to give you money, some will want to give you gift cards, and others will want to give you actual stuff. Setting up a website for "donations" won't bother everyone, but it will certainly bother some of your guests.

One thing you could do would be to hold off on making honeymoon plans (or make only bare bones plans with a small budget) until after the wedding and then, once you know how much your guests have given you, book your trip (or make your meager plans a little more luxurious).
posted by Meg_Murry at 8:13 AM on September 3

Someone I know used Honeyfund. I wasn't giving her a gift, but Facebook tells all. There, you could specificially give a certain part of the honeymoon, like "Give them a romantic dinner by the sea" or something. I have no idea what the fees are for that kind of a site, but it might be worth looking into.
posted by iliketolaughalot at 8:15 AM on September 3

Oh, didn't catch the fact that Saddo was in the UK!

Wedding tradition varies from country to country, so all us Americans saying, "It's rude to ask for what you want!" probably aren't being helpful :)

The search words you're looking for are "honeymoon registry". There are actually tons of services that try to help out with this, most of them being associated with a travel agent of one sort or another. Usually there set up like this - the couple picks which activities they want, and guests donate to a particular activity. You might call around to local travel agents and see if they can help you get something like that set up.
posted by muddgirl at 8:18 AM on September 3

Just a datapoint but if I was specifically asked for a cash at a wedding I would either still go ahead with my planned physical gift or else contribute a much smaller cash amount than I would have spent otherwise. (To me a gift is an expression of the gifters love; the gifttee specifying what form and the expense of a gift completely invalidates the meaning to me and instead makes it a straight "I'm over-paying for the privilege of eating food I don't want while listening to music I hate while wearing uncomfortable shoes"). You should look to the cultural norms in your family/social group. If you are the first to ask for cash outright then it is probably not something that will be will go over well.
Money was tight so our honeymoon cost less than $100, maybe downsize your plans and save the big trip for an anniversary?
posted by saucysault at 8:20 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

The only time I've heard of someone doing something like this, a very close friend took the guest list and contacted everyone personally, explained it as if it was their idea, and asked if the guest would be interested in participating. Apparently most people said yes, and it went over very well. I think the key is that it doesn't come from you.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:20 AM on September 3 [5 favorites has favorites]

Travel agencies do this all the time. You "register" with them and people contribute. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with this. If you don't want/need kitchen items, why not? I've contributed to this type of gift and was happy to do it!
posted by Kimberly at 8:21 AM on September 3

I did this exact thing for our wedding -- you can see the registry at our wedding website. I used Wordpress and the free e-Commerce plugin - it was pretty easy to set up, and we had both a PayPal option as well as a "manual payment" option which gave our bank account details for direct payments.

In my experience, the PayPal commission is the best you're going to get - the other Honeyfund type places that I looked at charged a lot more than that.

If you want details on our exact implementation, please feel free to MeMail me and I can help you out.
posted by ukdanae at 8:22 AM on September 3

You might look at travelersjoy.com.

(I've never registered there, but I have friends who have and who seem happy with it. I don't know what their commission structure is like.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:23 AM on September 3

When my wife and I got married this summer we set up a donation account with this site. According to their page, they work in the UK (where I am assuming you live) and a number of other countries. There are "premium options" that cost money, but we just used the free template. Now, I have to say, I absolutely hate the name of the site and I really didn't like the idea of using it at first. Thing is, though, we definitely didn't want to register anywhere yet many of our guests (extended family, family friends) truly did want to give us something. They would have just given us money anyway, so the site sort of gave them something more tangible to contribute to. Also, while on our honeymoon we took pictures of everything that people had "purchased" for us and we intend to send those photos along with thank you cards. We didn't widely advertise that we were using the site, just basically told our parents, my best man and my wife's maid of honor and the word got out there. I think it actually worked out nicely. I haven't heard any negative feedback about people thinking it was tacky or inappropriate.
posted by otolith at 8:25 AM on September 3

I think it is becoming more common - it is no different from a wedding registry (assuming that's common in the UK). A friend of mine is using Honeyfund and I know another couple who is planning to use Honeymoon Registry. Here is a UK version.
posted by serunding at 8:26 AM on September 3

Oh, didn't catch the fact that Saddo was in the UK!

Wedding tradition varies from country to country, so all us Americans saying, "It's rude to ask for what you want!" probably aren't being helpful :)

People are always writing pissy columns in UK newspapers about how tacky wedding registries and gift lists are, so I think it's pretty similar--certainly my UK friends' opinions of same are on a similar spectrum to my US friends' opinions of same.

The strictly correct way to do anything about organizing your wedding gifts is to have someone who is not related to you (your maid of honor/best man, respectively, unless they are your brother or sister in which case choose an unrelated member of your wedding party) communicate with people on your guest list saying, "If you're wondering what Jane and John want for wedding gifts, let me steer you to {gift list, store registry, honeymoon donation website, charity registry}."

If you are not that exercised about being a stickler for etiquette, you can include a slip with the donation website info in the invitation. Or send it as a separate mailing.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:33 AM on September 3

My wedding gift to some friends a year or two ago was to set up for them a simple PHP/MySQL website very much akin to buy-our-honeymoon.com. (They weren't so common at the time!) This had the advantage that when it came to paying, people had the option to do a bank transfer or send a cheque instead of using PayPal, as the fee is indeed galling. So if you have any web programmer friends you may like to suggest this to them.

Alternatively, the prices aren't very high so one of the off the shelf ones would probably suit your needs.

I don't think many people would see it as at all rude; it seems to me an excellent adaptation of the wedding list to the way a lot of people live today. And I would go with the 'slip in the invite' approach.
posted by thoughtless at 8:42 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

The modern work-around to the "word of mouth" rule with registries seems to be to not mention your registry in the invites, but to mention your wedding website--which might just happen to have registry information on it. This was our method (since we're not having a wedding party, it's the only way to really disseminate the info.), and the most proper people we know were also the first to buy us gifts off it, so it seems, I think, to have passed the properness test.

If you're planning on having a wedding website, I'd suggest a simple statement on there about how you don't need any material gifts. Chances are, people will still want to get you something--then you can rely on word-of-mouth to communicate your desire for honeymoon money.

You'll still probably get a few tchatchkes, but you'd probably get those no matter what. I'm one of those old (25-year-old) grumps who prefers to buy personal gifts, but doesn't mind buying off a registry. That being said, I've felt a little off-put when I've seen people ask outright for cash. Your cultural upbringing (I'm ask) may vary.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:52 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

Whoops, I'm guess, rather.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:54 AM on September 3

A co-worker used a site called the bigday.com and was very pleased with it.
posted by pasici at 9:02 AM on September 3

MeFites have some very strong, differing opinions on what is considered "proper" in terms of wedding gifts vs. asking for money (see this previous thread to get an idea of how split the community is on it). So take comments here with a grain of salt.

Coming from an Asian family where giving money and "red envelopes" is the default at weddings, personally I'd have no problem contributing to your honeymoon as a guest. I'd just bring either cash or a check in a card to your wedding.
posted by chalbe at 9:49 AM on September 3

UKer here. We went to a wedding recently and the couple had an account set up at Trailfinders. Not tacky at all IMO.
posted by hibbersk at 10:22 AM on September 3

We used The Big Day dot com, which pegs certain honeymoon activities to dollar amounts. (Give $100 for a dinner in Paris, for example.) No one seemed to think it was tacky -- and our snarky, potty-mouthed friends/relatives definitely would've told us if they did. We were able to honeymoon relatively worry-free, since we knew it was (semi-) paid for. If I remember correctly, the Big Day takes a percentage fee that's about the same as sales tax, so it's not exactly the same as getting a check -- and if you know a decent programmer, you may be able to set up something similar yourself.
posted by turducken at 10:47 AM on September 3

What I don't know is how people in the UK will react to not having a gift registry to reference.

When we were planning our (UK) wedding a few years back, I used to go on a (UK-based) wedding forum an awful lot and the general consensus was very much that directly asking for money is not remotely out of order in any way, whether it's specifically for a honeymoon or whether it's just because you don't want or need anything except cash.

However, we sent our invitations out without any reference to gifts or money or anything - we just didn't like the idea of a gift registry at all - and some people objected quite a bit to that. I thought it would be quite nice for people to get an invitation that didn't ask for anything except their presence, but apparently it's rude not to tell people what to get you - the aforementioned wedding forum thought it quite a heinous breach of etiquette. (As it was, we got a mixture of cash, vouchers, a few slightly dubious presents, and far more really cool, original, thoughtful ones, of the kind we would never have thought to ask for.)

In conclusion, it seems to me like whatever you do someone will find fault with it, so you may as well go for whatever you like!
posted by raspberry-ripple at 11:30 AM on September 3 [1 favorite has favorites]

My wedding invitations say "No Boxed Gifts Please", which is code for gimme money. Actually, I think people might give us gift cards, which kinda sucks, but there's no polite way to communicate the cash-only request.

Anyway, that's the least tacky way to do it, IMHO. Most people will give you checks.
posted by exhilaration at 2:07 PM on September 3

This is quite interesting actually. In Turkey (and probably in other Arab countries) for weddings, people give only very liquid gifts (gold coins, money, foreign currency etc). This might be a long shot but, you can start a new tradition by saying that you are having a "Turkish Style Gift Event" :)
posted by caelumluna at 3:30 PM on September 3

Firstly, you can't really dictate to people what they will or won't buy you as a gift. It's their choice. I think it's quite presumptuous to say "No Boxed Gifts" or something similar - who are you to tell people what they may or may not give you!

That said, to suggest a contribution to your honeymoon I think is fine, and some friends of mine did a similar thing as mentioned above where they had a website, and people selected different experiences, like "Lunch at La Jules Verne" or "Entry to the Louvre" - a mix of low and high priced things - and paid into their account.

The twist was that they took the listing with them on the trip, and every time they used one of the gifts, they wrote a postcard on the spot, saying thank you our delicious meal today, or thank you for showing us the Louvre. It really added sincerity and immediacy to the thank you and was a lovely touch which took away the discomfort of essentially giving cash.
posted by dave99 at 7:24 AM on September 4

I think what would be ideal is a registry or a wish list that included some generic way of saying 'we want money!' at the bottom, like at the bottom of all the toaster ovens and fluffy down comforters or whatever "Honeymoon funds" and a system for giving. The problem I think is that registries are store-specific.

But I bet a store that included a way to do this as part of their overall service, like if you registered at Macy's or whatever, they'd also set up a system for people who wanted to give cash in a 'classy' (sorry) way, with a card or whatever, I bet it would increase the overall number of people who used their system, because this isn't a unique problem, especially as people get married later--a lot of people already have champagne glasses and toaster ovens when they get married. Registries are a little archaic.

Someone out there--get on it!
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:32 AM on September 5

How about not having a wedding at all, throw a smaller scale party, and use the money you save towards your vacation?
posted by thisperon at 12:52 PM on September 5

Way too late on this, but...

When my wife and I got married we set up a registry with a travel company. We basically paid a deposit on the honeymoon we wanted to secure bookings and then we sent out donation cards with the invitations and a polite note explaining that in lieu of a gift we'd really appreciate a contribution to our honeymoon though the travel agency.

In the end the whole trip (travel and accommodation) was covered and we got a cash refund of the excess which went toward our spending money.

In our case it helped that the travel agent in question was a nation-wide chain and they offered the service, but something similar could be available in your area?
posted by sycophant at 1:53 AM on September 11

Just another data point about traditions based on your culture...for the Chinese, it is completely expected to give only money as a wedding gift (not blenders and crap), and not only that, it's expected to be cold hard CASH, in cute little red envelopes.
posted by davr at 7:56 AM on September 12

I think the general idea is very innovative.

A simple set up could be a wordpress blog. Explain your wedding plans and honeymoon concept. Obtain a PayPal business account to set up a button for gift / donations.

Grab your wedding guestlist, get email addresses, email them the site in a nice from-the-heart message briefing your concept and reason behind.

A gallery and "guestbook" would probably be fun for family and friends to stay connected with you and relive the day.

Integrate it with social media so they could share it on facebook or Ning.com, etc....
posted by Aegean at 3:05 PM on September 30