The Honeymoon Registry - What is it?

If you are worried about the cost of your honeymoon after a generous spending on the wedding itself, breathe easy. With some help from your good-hearted friends and family, your may solve your problem by setting up a honeymoon registry. Similar to a wedding registry in which you create a list of gifts you would like to get at your wedding, a honeymoon registries allow you to make a list of places you would like to go and things you would like to do on your honeymoon. It is a service, typically online, that helps you in financing your honeymoon. It allows your wedding guests to purchase portions of your honeymoon.

The concept of the honeymoon registry flourished in the 1990s as an additional service provided by travel agents and agencies. Some agencies still function in this and require the wedding couple to use their services to book their honeymoon. More modern honeymoon registries, however, do not involve themselves with the planning and booking of the event, but provide the newlyweds with a customizable web page to share their honeymoon plans with others and accept gifts toward the honeymoon. In most such registries, a couple can create and customize a registry web page with photos and details of their upcoming wedding and honeymoon.

Wedding guests are invited to the registry site so they could contribute a monetary gift to cover a portion of the honeymoon or a specific activity as chalked out by the couple. Suppose a couple lists dinner at an elegant restaurant, or portions of hotel and airfare. As these activities are displayed on their customized registry page, wedding guests can browse the page and can make a gift, typically using a credit card, of any of the listed activities. The guests can also present a general monetary gift of any amount towards the honeymoon.

Some other features of a honeymoon registy include messaging systems that allow wedding couples to email preformatted notices of their registry to wedding guests, services mail invitation inserts to the wedding couple, full tracking of gifts to help couples in creating “Thank You” cards. The advantages of honeymoon registries are that wedding couples can register for gifts they may desire more than physical objects. Also, more funds allow for activities that the couple may have been unable to afford otherwise.

In addition to simplifying the gift-giving process for wedding guests, a honeymoon registry helps them present something that will provide a lifelong memory. On the negative side, it is perceived by some as asking for money. The practice considered rude by those with conservative views. Most honeymoon registries include a service that charges a service fee on collected funds.

Jen Carter is owner of My Wedding Blog, a free wedding planning guide about weddings. visit us at http://www.my-wedding-blog.com. signup for our newsletter, or use our featured “Ask the Planner” section.