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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.
Jerry Windley-Daoust runs the Creative Honeymoon Ideas website, where you can learn more about honeymoon registries, including a side-by-side comparison of six popular honeymoon registries.