As the date draws near I post this in hopes that my wedding guests might perk up their ears…. A wedding is a huge celebration carefully thought through by the bride and groom, well in our case anyway! This includes the aspect of gift giving.

Like most couples getting married within this decade, Adam and I have lived together for pretty much two years now. Contrary to traditional weddings back in the Philippines, we don’t need a fresh set of household gifts as we have and currently use a set of pots and pans or vacuum. We’ve made clear to our guests that we value experiences over material objects. We prefer cash gifts but I couldn’t very well ask for cash at my bridal shower, so we had ended up creating a gift registry.

It was only this week that I found out about Zola – the all in one cash and gift registry! If I had found about about this site sooner it would have saved me all the headache of setting up a Honeyfund (only to have found out that they only accept payments through PayPal and no other Canadian bank) and then succumbing to having set up a registry at another well known home goods retailer.

A gift registry makes it easy for the bride and groom; no longer are the happy couple given gifts of bone china or silverware – items of which are never used. Most couples who live in the city don’t really have extra storage space for that bread maker or rocking chair. We created our registry for those who absolutely HAVE to gift a material object.

Why are cash gifts ideal? It requires one person to carry cash gifts versus the 5 that will need to take wrapped gifts home. Again, as a couple that already live together, it is just far more ideal to know that our family & friends have gifted us with funding our honeymoon.

So while we do have a gift registry I do hope that our guests take into account the fact that we are very happy with all our belongings and if they absolutely MUST purchase a gift to please keep within the registry. Check out Zola’s tips on registry gift giving below.