Gift registry wording – how to get it spot on

Your wedding guests will know that they are expected to bring a gift to your wedding so you don’t need to feel coy about mentioning your registry as long as you don’t print it directly on your wedding invitations. Here are some tips on gift registry wording.

If you are registering for wedding presents…

If you have registered for gifts you will often be given subtle cards by your provider to send with your invitations stating where you have registered. If you choose to include these with the invitations there is really no need to do anything else as your guests will understand you want a gift from your list. Where applicable these cards may give a code and a website to log on to.

For something more personal you could always make your own cards and write something along these lines,

“If you’d like to buy a gift for the Bride and Groom, they have a gift list at (Store), list number 123456. The list is active for 8 weeks from (Date) and the website is (Website)”

Brides often want to know how they can politely say that they only want present from their list, but that isn’t actually possible. Guests aren’t obliged to buy a gift at all, never mind one from your list, and if you have included your registry information you can’t do any more without seeming rude.

If you’d like money or vouchers instead…

If you’ve already set up home when you get married and have all the domestic items you need, you might want to ask for money or vouchers instead of household gifts. In this case you can include a small card with your invitations with a note or poem indicating what you are going to spend the money on.  Many couples ask for money towards their honeymoon, and if that’s the case you could say;

“Your presence at our wedding is a big enough gift but if you would like to buy us something, a contribution towards our dream honeymoon would be appreciated”

A popular poem is that highlights the fact that the money will go towards home improvements is:

So what do you get
For the bride and groom
Whose house needs work
In every room?
If buying a gift please don’t be rash
As there’s always the option
To just give cash.
We hope you don’t find
Our request to be funny
But we could really use
A gift of money

It may be that you would prefer gifts of money or vouchers because you live far away and will be travelling back after the big day. In this case you could write something like this,

“Because we will be making our journey home after the wedding, a gift in an envelope would make life easier”

This is more subtle and can be made even softer by using an image of a gift and a picture of an envelope rather than using words.

It may be easier to ask for monetary gifts if the wedding invitations come from your parents or are written by a third party. You could put something similar to the following,

“Henry and Sally have not put together a gift list but are currently doing some DIY on their first home together. If you would like to offer them a bit of help with this, money or vouchers would be greatly appreciated.”

If you’d rather not receive gifts at all…

It is difficult to mention that you don’t want gifts when you send out invitations without sounding as if you really do, but it may be that you really don’t want guests to buy presents at all, especially if the wedding is in a location that means guests will have to travel and pay for accommodation.

One popular way of putting it is.

“We want your presence rather than your presents.”

Usually, just leaving gift list details out of your invitation is sufficient. You can inform your close friends and relatives that you don’t want presents so that when guests ring up to ask whether you have a list they know what to say. It may be a good idea to choose a store you’d like vouchers for, or a good cause you’d like guests to give donations to for those that particularly want to give a present.