Wedding Registries

When I first started thinking about the wedding and registries I cam across a wonderful article which unfortuantely I cannot find. Anway, the premise of the article was -

People really want what they put on their registry, otherwise, they wouldn't have put it on there.

Mike and I were loathe to make a registry. I think the process is a little outdated. People are getting married at older ages (yours truly is an exception); they've acquired a lot of those household things that are commonly included on the registry. This means that most of what we want is on the expensive side of things; most of our family friends probably can't afford that stuff anyway.

So here is our alternative:

We are planning to travel to Spain after the honeymoon -- we have a travel budget but we know we could have a lot more fun with a bit more financial cushioning. We set up a paypal account so people could "donate" to our travel fund. Family can give us checks if they'd prefer. This way, people can control how much they spend on gifts and know that we really really want what they have to give.

I know that there are some people out there who aren't comfortable giving money as a gift but I think people should rethink their hangup on this. I've heard too many stories of people getting absolutely AWFUL gifts (not on their registry)!! My goal with the paypal registry is to stop this practice and help couples (like Mike and I) get what we really want. In our case, that's a fabulous vacation. Maybe you want new furniture? A giant television. Whatever!