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So, here's the deal: you've been together for years. You've got all the towels and plates and silverware you could ever need. You don't want any more vases, and you're not interested in candlesticks. But you are planning a three week adventure honeymoon across Argentina, and you have no idea how you're going to pay for it after putting on the wedding.
Enter buy-our-honeymoon.com and their honeymoon gift registries …
Unlike some honeymoon registries (which take a cut of each gift) buy-our-honeymoon.com just does a one-time fee of $64. They have a bunch of non-froofy design themes, and keep their branding to an absolute minimum on your registry pages. You can upload your own photos for each item you list (Snack in Buenos Aires: $15. Night at hotel: $100), and organize your items into as many categories as you need, and display a second currency for each item, with the site managing the currency conversions for you. Oh, and their customer service is suuuper attentive, which is awesome if you're on the non-geeky side of things
Check out this sample registry for a couple who's honeymoon is Vancouver BC's pride weekend and imagine how you might put yours together.
Since buy-our-honeymoon.com doesn't take any commission from gifts, you can manage the payment however you want: by cash or check, or by linking your registry to a PayPal account so guests can use their credit cards to pay the couple directly. Buy-our-honeymoon.com doesn't hold onto your gifts — they're available to you from the moment they're given.
So, if you don't need plates or vases or flatwear or new bedsheets, head on over to buy-our-honeymoon.com and start assembling the little bits and pieces you'll need for your honeymoon.
What a great idea!
Hmm. I know a lot of people use them and I’ve even contributed and that’s all well and good, but *personally*, I’d feel icky asking people for honeymoon funds. I know the flatware, etc. gifts aren’t always wanted or needed (although that’s kind of how all gifts are – you’ll get some things you want and need and some things you don’t), but this is just another way to ask for money as a gift. And somehow itemizing each vacation-related expense (unless you do it in a super-funny way) makes it seem even MORE tacky. I dunno, it’s probably just me.
It’s not just you. I think it’s tacky as well. I have no issue with getting the word around that y’all are saving for a great honeymoon, etc and hoping people give you some money,but asking for somebody to buy you a snack is a bit strange to me.
Ugh, I’m so sick of people saying that asking for cash is tacky, while asking for gifts isn’t. Asking for anything could be considered tacky, but guiding your friends and family toward what will actually be useful and meaningful to you if they want to give a gift is just smart. If it’s not tacky to register for Waterford and crystal, then how is it tacky to suggest contributing to something more ‘your style’ – a vacation, the downpayment to a house…
Sorry – I get a little worked up on this one…
I have a problem with asking for anything as an “established” couple. If I can’t afford to pay for my wedding and my honeymoon, I shouldn’t be having a large wedding or going on a big expensive honeymoon.
I’m with Liz. This can turn some guests off since it’s something that seems more extravagant than crystal knicknacks. People tend to give money to the couple at weddings anyway. I think that it’s best to just register for something modest and then see what happens.
I’m gonna put the kibosh on the “is it tacky” debate — it’s a debate with no end. Some ideas are great for some people, and not others. If you don’t like the idea of a honeymoon registry, then you absolutely shouldn’t do one at your wedding.
I will say that as a wedding guest, I’ve been super stoked to give friends $30 for dinner in rural Mexico — most of their gifts were in the $20-$50 range, which is hardly extravagent. I loooooved contributing to their honeymoon.
I trust that each engaged couple will be the best judges as to whether their circle of guests will appreciate giving experiential gifts like those on a honeymoon registry. Personally, I love it.
As an established couple, I think we might do 3 things –
1)register for a few things we could use (new pots & pans or bedding)
2)information for donations in our name to several animal organizations
3)information on the honeymoon we are planning and how guests can help
I know when I go to a wedding, I want to give something from me that the couple will enjoy. Even if I think something is kinda odd, if it is something they want/need… so be it!
i am not asking for gifts or for a honeymoon. i will have a gift registry but only those who ask will be given the information. the most important gift i can recieve is their attendance at my wedding.
i’m with ariel on this one. did those of you decrying the “tacky” and “extravagant” nature of a honeymoon registry actually look at an example?
$30 for room service, $20 for a play/show or even $80 for a couples massage all seem like reasonable, affordable and AWESOME gifts.
i mean, i’ve given many couples, ones i know have everything and want for nothing, gift certificates to restaurants, theatre tickets, etc. why not allow them to enjoy these things on their honeymoon?
i’m going to try to do a honeymoon registry myself with my limited HTML skills and paypal. in addition to $20 for “treacherous bus trip down the Albanian coastâ€, it will include $10 carbon offsets for our air travel and $15 donations to charities in the countries we’ll be visiting.
We wanted to do a ‘honeymoon’ registry…until we discovered that the majority of them require you to itemize your vacation. It comes across, at least to me, as spoiling the honeymoon! What is spontaneous and fun about ‘getting away’ if everything you do, eat, etc. is pre-bought and planned out for you?! I brought this entire debate/ idea up to my mother, and she immediatly replied with ‘that (honeymoon registries)is TACKY and absolutely RUDE for you to ask your guests for.’ However, she also thinks gift registries in general are tacky and rude. She’s from the age of conservativism, what can I say. So….where am I headed with all this? We are now trying to figure out some non-tacky wording on how to inform our guests that: we don’t want gifts of any kind; except if they feel so inclined to give us a little $$ toward a great honeymoon. I’ve been a wedding guest one too many times that has been left in the dark on what to give the couple. Many times, no information was given at all, and I ended up buying something that I have no doubt they didn’t like. Other times, the registries were so long and extensive, it made me sick to my stomach just how matrialistic the couple was. I know that I MUST give some kind of guidance in order to avoid those situations. Any one have some advice?
I hate that as a bride planning my own wedding, I instantly think of the worst case scenerio. Bare with me.
It’s probably all about how you present this to your guests. With a link that says Buy-Our-Honeymoon, you will probably have guests that wouldn’t bother to click on the link with their minds already made up with the “Who do they think they are” attitude. This is definantly something that needs to be explained a bit further with your guests if one were to use it.
Hey guys… this is Shelley and I created and run Buy Our Honeymoon.
I think this debate is really interesting. We are English and I am finding the cultural differences fascinating.
We created the list for ourselves when we got married 3 years ago. We had enough money for our wedding and our honeymoon and we didn’t expect anyone to contribute anything.
We really just wanted to do something quite fun and different that would give people guidance if they were looking for inspiration.
We were really surprised at how hugely popular the idea was and how generous people were. I think what they loved most was how they could personally connect with the idea. Our usher (AKA groomsman?) is a scuba diving fan so he got us a day of watersports in Key West. To me that was so much more personal and special and memorable than anything he could have bought us from a shop.
We feel that if a honeymoon registry is done well, it’s not rude in the slightest. It can allow people to make a real emotional connection with their gift, giving them a pleasure in giving.
Oh Butterbean Buy Our Honeymoon is just the name of the company.
We have domains like The Gift of Memories, Honeymoon Promises and Our Honeymoon Registry for people to present to their guests.
Anyhoo! I’ve said enough now 🙂
Know what I hate? Established couples who have more than enough of EVERYTHING who feel they *need* to register for stuff and use it to get stuff they really don’t need but guests still must spend money on. Like a couple who didn’t need anything, registered anyway, then returned the stuff for store credit. THAT’s tacky. And how impersonal.
My fiance and I are paying for our wedding ourselves and don’t need more STUFF in our house so why would our families not want to contribute to a vacation for us? Sheesh.
That said, I don’t think I like the very itemized vacation pieces either and think that we’ll find a classy way to have family & friends contribute to a general “fund” which we will notify people of if they ask.
I can see how some of you think honeymoon registries are tacky, but I’ve also seen them work really well.
At a wedding (and shower) I attended last year, all of the guests got really creative with how they presented the news of what they got the couple. One person who got them a helicopter ride over some Hawaiian islands gave them a note in a toy helicopter. I stuck the scuba-diving confirmation print-out in a children’s underwater adventure book.
The couple loved the personal touches and had a wonderful honeymoon.
In this era of overwhelming materialism, I think contributing to an experience instead of a registry is a great idea.
Also, the fact that you can put many different items up there that you’d like to do, and then see what you end up getting is a creatively unique experience – you won’t know what your honeymoon will be entirely until you go. That would be exciting.
Finally, afterwards you can post photos in Picasa albums and share with family and friends to thank them for providing you the opportunity to have a wonderful experience together.
It really isn’t any tackier than a registry. I’d much rather buy couples time together than anything else.
The general rule is you don’t even tell people where you are registered until they ask, exactly because you shouldn’t be asking for gifts on your own behalf. People should be able to buy or not buy for you as they please, and a registry is something mostly done for people who really want to know exactly what to get you.
While I think this Honeymoon registry idea might work for some people, it makes me really uncomfortable. Asking for money in any form feels weird to me, like you are asking for a reward for getting married. I’m not saying this its wrong for everyone, and its very tastefully done. I’m only commenting because this is the only thing I’ve ever seen on Offbeat bride that made me physically tense up. For me (and not for everyone) it’s crossing the wedding as materialism/ consumerism line.
I have been on the fence about whether to do this or not. It sounds like a fun way to include your guests even more with the wedding/honeymoon process. Some guests might feel good about contributing to the happy couple’s fun. I actually don’t need anything to establish my home. My fiance and I have set up a registry for people to contribute to Lymphoma Research in honor of my man’s father who died a few years ago. We also joked that it might be fun to set up a “Home Depot” registry so we can fix up our new nest, and then have a big house warming showing everyone what they contributed to. But alas, I am still sitting on the fence with all of it. On leg on each side, and I don’t know which side to jump on. 🙂
As with a gift registry, there’s a tacky and non-tacky way to go about this. Wedding guests will usually ask where the couple is registered; at that point, I don’t see a difference between saying, “We’re registered at buy-my-honeymoon” an “We’re registered at Crate and Barrel.” In both scenarios, the couple has made a list of gifts they would like and is sharing that list with gift-purchasers. Why is it any different to ask for a hotel room in Maui than to ask for a new blender?
As long as you don’t include the registry information in the invitation envelopes (always tacky, in my opinion), I think you’re fine.
i have a question for Shelley Green! how can we use another domain like “the gift of memories”? I think our friends and family would respond really well to that name.
Hey Kristen. You can select your domain name from a drop down list when you sign up for the free trial. If you change your mind later on you can always email us and we’ll change it for you.
Alright, I have to weigh in.
What I love about this site (other than the one time fee- that alone is a huge advantage) is that the guests can see what they are buying. I feel awkward about asking for anything, be it gifts or money. But much better than asking people to donate sums to a bank account is asking them to send you on an adventure or get a massage. I love that they see what their money is going towards, instead of just signing a check into oblivion.
As for the “established couple” debate? Well, what’s the definition of established? The people who aren’t concerned about finances are few and far between. Even if you can afford to pay for your wedding (I know I’m accepting money from my family, and I’m sure I’m not alone) I find it difficult to believe that extra cash wouldn’t make a honeymoon easier. And it doesn’t have to be a “big expensive honeymoon” for other people to contribute. You could be going on a road trip or ask for help paying camp site fees.
Bottom line, people who come to a wedding are going to want to get you a gift. I think if you can make that process easier for them, why wouldn’t you?
Here’s what I don’t get…you itemize the things, like “$x for scuba diving” or whatever, that the guest can contribute to, and it seems that some people like that. But how does the guest know you will actually use the money for that? How does the guest know you won’t take your “rural Mexican restaurant meal” to the casino and blow it?
Morgan, how would a guest know you won’t return that crystal vase and blow the money at the casino? Or that you won’t use the crystal vase as a compost bin? When you give a gift, you can never know what the recipient will do with it.
My fiance and I are seriously considering doing something like this, in addition to the traditional registry. We’re planning on registering for the extra perks on the honeymoon. We can cover lodging and food, but then we’ll register for an afternoon at the spa on our cruise ship, or for having a bottle of wine/champagne sent to our room one night. I don’t want people to feel obligated to fund my entire honeymoon, but to truly gift us an additional part of the experience. In my mind, it’s similar to registering for a nice set of china: you could live without it, it’s not something you’d buy for yourself, but it makes a wonderful gift.
I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this topic, since I am torn myself. As an older “established” couple, we need little. Despite that, we’re under a lot of pressure from the groom’s parents to register for stuff. (As soon as we got engaged they took us out to look at china, and things we don’t need.) We’re also stretching to have a wedding that includes all of my large family, which means that we won’t have much left for the honeymoon. While expecting people to get us gifts bothers me, we could really use help on the honeymoon! It just makes me so darn uncomfortable!
wow this is a very interesting discussion. there was once a time when registering at a department store was considered in bad taste and for the most part almost no one feels that way anymore.
that might happen with these “honeymoon funds” and other new gifting ideas. it will probably be considered common and acceptable soon because so many couples are getting married later in life and just do not need to set up house so there is a need for new ways to give to the new couple.
I’m on the fence with the “Honeymoon Wishes” registry. Part of me understands the logic behind it, but it still feels like asking your friends to foot the bill for your HM.
To me, the HM seems like it should be the sole responsibility of the bride and groom. But then I suppose a registry for HM things is really no different than a traditional registry where the couple pre-selects blenders and china in hopes guests will purchase them.
In the end: guests will be a) spending money; and b) giving the couple a gift. As long as the choice is theirs, what difference does it make what form in comes in? Waterford crystal punch bowl or cold, hard cash?
I agree with Ariel that this is really a case where it’s going to depend on the couple. For some, this may seem unsuitable and borderline tacky – it’s hard enough to ‘plan’ presents. I for one HATE making Christmas and Birthday gift lists, and I don’t see how my wedding is going to be much different. But for others, this might be the perfect way for friends and family to feel involved and excited about the trip.
For example, my sister and mother decided to travel the world last year, and us at home would occasionally tell them “Have dinner on us” (also known as ‘use the credit card’). Technically they were supposed to be paying their own way, but it was fun and meaningful to hear where they did eat, and how grateful they were to not worry about the money behind it. They actually took a cooking class in Vietnam one of these times; it was a great use of the dinner-on-us, and a great story to tell!
Check out the Wall Street Journal’s review of the honeymoon registry industry written just a couple of weeks ago: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121020123458375115.html
Why does it even matter if someone else considers it tacky or rude? Isn’t this offbeatwed.com? Is anyone concerned whether or not someone thinks your red dress is tacky? Or OMG your tattoos are going to be showing? It’s your wedding, do what you want how you want…you won’t please everyone.
In the words of my Kindergarten teacher, “Don’t worry about what others are doing or think about what you are doing, focus on what makes you happy!”
It’s an endless debate, doesn’t really matter, nor will it sway someone who wants to do this anyway. Huffiness and Stephanie Tanner “how rudes!” make things not fun! if you don’t like it, don’t play … there is zero reason to ruin or damper anyone else’s fun other than your pointless need to voice your snotty opinion! You don’t like their HM registry? Well buy them a knife set and call it a day.