3 On Your Side: Untraditional Wedding Registries
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Will you be attending any weddings this year? Don't be surprised to see a new sort of request on the gift registry.
As 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan finds, it might take some by surprise as more and more millennial love birds are ditching the dishes and asking for cold hard cash instead.
With Lauren Capriotti and Nick Guerin's wedding around the corner, as well as the goal to update their kitchen and bathrooms, they decided to try something untraditional with their gift registry. According to Caprioti, "We requested cash because we had so much work to do on our home, and we realized that a lot of our finances over the next two to six months after the wedding are all going to go into these renovations."
For the bridal shower they asked for Home Depot gift cards, and for the wedding they signed up with Tendr, an online registry where guests can use a credit card to add to their renovation fund.
Lauren and Nick are part of a growing trend of bridal couples asking to fill their wallet instead of filling their cabinets. Ann Chertoff with Yahoo Style says, "Couples today are living together well before they get married, and so they already have dishes and glassware and linens and towels. so they don't need to register for more of those items."
Some relatives may turn red over the thought of bridal couples holding out their hands for some green, so experts suggest carefully explaining how you'll be managing the money on your wedding website. Chertoff says, "You don't want to come off as greedy or crass. and so it's a really fine line that you make sure you find a registry site that's reputable and also something that looks appealing and secure."
About a dozen online wedding registries offer cash as a gift choice, but there is catch. According to financial expert Heather George, "There's fees associated with those services. So it's not necessarily that you shouldn't use them. But you should be aware of the fee associated with using the online registration."
Etiquette experts recommend couples don't just give their guests their bank or Paypal account information, but instead either request checks or sign up for an online cash registry. Most of the registry sites charge anywhere from two to eight percent, offering customized options to describe the fund and send e-cards from the givers and the recipients.
The following websites offer wedding registries with cash options:
http://www.simpleregistry.com/
http://www.ourwishingwell.com/
