What can you list on your registry? If you can buy it, you can list it. Typical registries list transportation, lodging, activities, special amenities, and meals. Expensive items are usually broken down so guests can choose to pay only a portion of item. For example, a honeymoon registry might list 10 gifts of $100 each toward your $1000 airfare expense.

Some honeymoon registries allow you to personalize your registry with a message to your guests and descriptions of different parts of your honeymoon, perhaps even allowing you to upload pictures to registry.

3. Announcing honeymoon registry Once your registry is set up, you need to let your wedding guests know that it exists. Many registries will provide you with printed cards announcing registry and its web address; you can either mail them with wedding invitation or separately. Some registries will e-mail your wedding guests if you provide their addresses.

The more tactful approach is to let your guests know about your registry indirectly. Let your parents, close friends, or wedding party members know that you have a honeymoon registry; they can pass word along to guests. Or create a wedding web page with up-to-date information for guests, and include a link to your registry on that page. You can then list address of your wedding web page in your invitation without directly bringing up issue of gifts.

4. Buying gifts from honeymoon registry Guests look up your registry by typing your last name(s) into a search box on registry website. After reading what you want, they click on item(s) they want to buy and pay for items over website. Most registries also allow guests to purchase items by phone.

The gift-giver usually receives a certificate that is either sent to wedding couple or to giver (to hand on to couple in person); some registries charge a fee to mail this certificate. Other registries notify couple of gift by e-mail. On any registry, you can track how many gifts you have received simply by logging into registry.

It's important to note that most registries require guests to pay a service charge for privilege of contributing to your honeymoon. The service charge is a percentage of cost of gift; registries we surveyed had service charges ranging from 3.5% to 15%. So if a guest wants to pay $100 toward your airfare and honeymoon registry website imposes a 10% service charge, she will end up spending $110.

5. Paying for honeymoon The wedding couple are ultimately responsible for paying for their honeymoon expenses. That means that any portion of honeymoon that must be paid prior to wedding (airfare, room deposits and so on) comes out of your pocket. Some or all of those expenses might be picked up by your guests, although most couples' honeymoon expenses are not completely covered by their registry. It's wise not to plan a more extravagant honeymoon than you can pay for yourselves.

Whatever money wedding guests contribute toward honeymoon is placed in a holding account. The registry sends couple a check (or electronically deposits funds into their account) on a predetermined date, usually a week before wedding. Even though wedding guests paid for certain parts of honeymoon, couple is really free to use money for anything they want.

6. Thanking guests It's important to write thank-you notes to guests who bought part of honeymoon (just as you would write thank-you notes for any wedding gift). It might actually be fun to thank guests for honeymoon, though, because you can describe your experience in note—you might even include a picture.

GREEKS

The ancient Greeks are thought to have been forerunners in rising of traditional engagement ring. Given as a token of care and affection, rings used by Greeks were known as betrothal rings and were given before marriage. However, giving of these rings was not always a pre-requisite to marriage and was often given in same way as a friendship ring might be given today.

ROMANS

As seen by their use of wedding ring, ancient Romans weren't most sentimental of people, and early version of their "engagement ring" were thought to have carved keys on them. It has been debated that this could have been to symbolise woman's right to access and own half of everything following marriage. However, more sentimental like to think that key may have been a key to her husband's heart.

ROYALTY AND THE AFFLUENT

Engagement rings as we know them today - stunning gems encased in precious metals - became popular in around fourteenth or fifteenth century, when affluent and royals began to exchange and wear these jewels. However, these items were so expensive that nobody other than royals and rich could afford to exchange them. It was to be many centuries before these engagement rings would become more popular or traditional.

Why a ring?

The purpose of engagement rings and wedding bands is to convey deep emotions of eternal love, eternal happiness, eternal commitment, and eternal togetherness. In fact, these rings signify eternity - between giver and recipient. A ring, of course, is a complete circle with no break and no end or beginning, which means that it just goes on and on - it is eternal.

And, since folklore has it that fourth finger of left hand has a vein leading directly to heart, it is only natural that both engagement and wedding rings would be worn on this particular finger, which was once reputed to be a direct route to heart.

Summary

In short, it is clear that giving of a ring in honour of a union, betrothal, and marriage has been going on since ancient times, and although it may not always have been as glamorous and romantic as it is today, it was still a way of exchanging a contract of betrothal or marriage.

Thankfully, today's wedding bands and engagement rings are not made of hair, grass, plants or twine as they may have been in ancient times, but of beautiful metals set with stunning gems, such as platinum, titanium, white gold, gold, sapphires, diamonds, rubies and emeralds. These incredible items of jewellery are likely to remain as popular as ever as centuries go by, and even as rest of world advances in to a futuristic and technological age, it's hard to imagine a day where a beautiful diamond engagement ring doesn't melt heart of its recipient.