Should we mix a wedding registry and a charity donation?

January 5, 2018 5:29 PM

My fiancee and I are getting married this coming May. We've been working on our registry and we've come to a disagreement about how to have a registry and also suggest a couple of charities that people can donate to if they don't want to purchase anything that we've registered before. One of us has suggested having a link to one charity each on our wedding website next to links to our registries. The other person thinks that it's strange to do both and that we should choose all donations or all registry. Thoughts?
posted by Fister Roboto to Human Relations (18 answers total)

I've looked at registries that have the org for donation as a registry item, and others that put them out as two seperate things. Having both options seems to be common and doesn't come across as weird.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 5:35 PM on January 5, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'm used to seeing them next to links for the registries, I think it's fairly normal.
posted by jessamyn at 5:40 PM on January 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Do both.
posted by cnc at 5:47 PM on January 5, 2018

Do both. It’s not weird at all.

Even if you only have a donation option and no registry, some people will give you a gift anyway, either in addition to or instead of the charity donation. You may as well get the things you want, instead of what people will think you might want, so have a registry.
posted by sailoreagle at 6:07 PM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

It may depend on a person's friend circles but this would definitely be the norm with my friends. I've also been to a "cash requested" wedding where they were moving across the world and gifts would be a burden
I know in some families these might be taboo, though, so perhaps worth a conversation with SO to see if the donations might make for unpleasantness in some quarters, as this might be worth avoiding.
posted by chapps at 6:25 PM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

We did both. We said "please donate to these charities, if you insist on buying us stuff here is a registry."
posted by dismas at 6:27 PM on January 5, 2018

My experience is that, if you have a registry at all, very few, if any, people will contribute to the charity. We tried very hard with the “Please give to this charity, but, if you must, here’s a registry” and almost everyone insisted on getting us something. Perhaps you have more charitable friends and family than we do.
posted by Betelgeuse at 6:34 PM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

We did both - or actually had a 3 part message on our website: 1) your presence is the best gift, 2) if you want to honor the occasion with a gift, please consider a donation to XX (our local food bank - which does amazing advocacy work on hunger as well), 3) we're also registered at Amazon (link).

We got a nice mixture of donations (we raised about $1000 - and it felt really great to as a way to celebrate the next stage of our relationship), gifts from the registry, checks, and people who we were thrilled to see traveled to the wedding (sans gift). For our charity, the nonprofit was willing to set up a campaign page for our wedding that we sent people to, which was a nice touch and made it a bit more personal.
posted by purplevelvet at 6:45 PM on January 5, 2018 [3 favorites]

Nthing do both.
posted by rustcellar at 7:03 PM on January 5, 2018

Like Betelgeuse, the DingoWife and I did both, but pretty much everyone got us something rather than donating. I'm really not sure how to get around that (especially given sailoreagle's good point that even if you only did a charity many people would still end up giving you something). I guess it really depends on your friend/family circle, but I wouldn't go in with high hopes of generating a lot of charity donations through your wedding.

Even so, I'd nth that it's not particularly unusual anymore to have both a registry and links to charities on your wedding website.
posted by DingoMutt at 7:26 PM on January 5, 2018

I have seen many people do both. Keep in mind that even if you did NOTHING, a lot of people would still get you gifts -- my sister and her fiance specified no gifts and did no registry or donation links or anything, and still ended up with lots of (mostly strange) gifts. So I would vote for at least having a registry because at least this way you get things you will actually want/use. Adding the donation link next to the registry is very normal and I don't think people will think it is strange. If you prefer people to donate vs. registry, I think it helps to include a note about WHY the charity is personally meaningful to you and your fiance (for example, if you can pick something you volunteer with or that has some personal connection to you guys or a family member).
posted by rainbowbrite at 7:35 PM on January 5, 2018

As someone who has done this pretty recently (my wife and I got married in 2016), I have some advice:

1. Register for things you will actually use. We did this very carefully (even though we'd been living together for over five years by the time of our wedding) and it meant that people gave us things we actually wanted and now use, as opposed to three different waffle irons.

1b. Register for a wide variety of things, including the stuff where you and your fiancee go "that's too expensive" because someone will likely want to get you something Big, and you'll be happier if the Big thing or things are what you chose, as opposed to the glass-bowl standing mixer Great Uncle John and Great Uncle Mary got talked into at Williams-Sonoma. Seriously, one of the best things we were given as a wedding present is a high-end ice cream maker (that a bunch of our friends banded together to get for us!), and I use it more often than I should (most recent ice cream: salted caramel, where the caramel and the salt have an ongoing battle with your tongue).

2. If you want to suggest to people that they donate to a charity of your choice (and you should, if that's what you want), I'd stick the link(s) on the page linking to your registry (or registries), rather than going with one of the "register for all the things through us, and we'll be an intermediary" outfits. I'm having a hard time articulating why, but those sites are always a little weird to me, both as a wedding guest and as someone who has planned a wedding in recent memory.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:58 PM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Do both.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:20 PM on January 5, 2018

Go ahead and do both. However, we did not have a registry at all, only listed charities on our wedding website, and all of 3 guests out of 80 donated to charities. 4 gave us tangible gifts. The rest gave us cash gifts.
posted by muddgirl at 5:56 AM on January 6, 2018

It's 100% normal to do both. WE used both a basic online registry for stuff, and also this consumerist-alternative registry, SoKind. A few people chose our donation ideas and commented on how much they liked that option.
posted by Miko at 8:23 AM on January 6, 2018

Another person who did both.
posted by joyceanmachine at 11:37 AM on January 6, 2018

Just got married and have so much stuff between us I almost gave away our unused kitchen appliances as door prizes to guests. We asked that anyone who wanted to give donate to an activity through Honeyfund, and included our favorite charity in the list.
posted by buzzkillington at 8:32 PM on January 6, 2018

I will say there was a big generational divide. Young people mostly did charity stuff (I think they took us seriously that we didn't need physical objects) while older relatives had a hard time wrapping their brains around it.
posted by dismas at 11:52 AM on January 8, 2018 [2 favorites]