Advice for Creating a City-Centric {Royally-Inspired} Wedding Registry

A warm welcome back to Amanda Allen, founder of NewlyWish and Merci New York's resident gifting expert.
Last week, we had the pleasure of listening to Amanda speak on part of an intimate panel for the Wedding Salon, which also included two of the most charming and influential experts in the biz, Colin Cowie and Mark Ingram. While Colin spoke about wedding planning, and Mark chatted about wedding fashion, Amanda shared her tips and tricks on developing a wedding registry that suits your city lifestyle and still works for your guests. Today, she's sharing those tips with you. Take it away, Amanda....
Hello again Merci Readers!

Just last week I had the privilege of taking part in a more intimate setting with two of my favorite people in the industry - Colin Cowie and Mark Ingram – at the Wedding Salon’s Bridal Bootcamp and I thought it would be fun to share with you some details from the event!

About 50 brides attended the session at Mark Ingram’s Atelier and we had a lively discussion about trends we’re seeing and advice for the participants, with the lovely Tatiana Byron serving as moderator. Regarding registry, we talked about a variety of things, including:

Current Registry Trends - Increased Personalization and Moving Beyond the ‘Traditional’
As you’ve all seen, options are opening up for couples to really personalize and do unique things with every part of their wedding, from stationery, to flowers and décor, to dresses. And this idea of personalization is taking hold in registry too. As people are, on average, getting married later in life they have a better-developed sense of their personal styles and how they want to live as a couple and you can see this in the things they put in their registry.

Also many couples are expanding their registries to include things beyond household items, to things like camping equipment or different experience-type gifts, and we’ve seen that not only do people like including these things in their registries, but guests really take to them as well. For example, at NewlyWish we’ve seen that experiences such as cooking classes and dancing lessons are among the first items purchased from registries which, I think, reflects this idea of personalization – when your guests visit your registry and they see you, as a couple, reflected in it, they feel good about the gifts because they know they’re things that you will use and remember.

Now this doesn’t mean that people are moving away from traditional registry gifts, as much as it’s leading to a melding of traditional with the way they live.

Advice for Couples Creating a Wedding Registry
There are two, closely related, things that I think people should have in mind as they start their registry:

First, make a plan – Talk to your partner and really think about what you want and need. Have a look around your home, see what’s missing or needs an upgrade. Think about how you really live your lives and your style as a couple. And then, check out the web and magazines to find the brands and styles you like. Don’t let the store’s buyers make those decisions for you; if you start out in the store, that scanner gun will lead you right down the rabbit hole and by the end you’ll have a ton of stuff in your registry, but you might also include things that are nice but really aren’t what you really need or fit your lifestyle.

Second, keep your guests in mind – Make sure there’s a range of price points and types of items in your registry. And actively manage your registry to keep this range available right up to the end. There’s nothing worse as a guest than visiting a gift list and finding that there are only a couple of things left on the registry and they’re all out of your price range or just not things you want to buy.

The Royal Wedding – Registry Inspiration
Not surprisingly, the Royal Wedding was also touched upon and Colin talked about the rise of formality that we can expect to see as brides look to Kate for inspiration for everything from the gown, cake, groom’s attire and of course the rising popularity of the Royal sapphire ring! The discussion got me thinking about what inspirations couples can take from Kate and Prince William’s plans, and the fact that, for their registry, they’ve decided to create a charity registry that will direct gifts to five causes that are close to their hearts and reflect their experiences, passions and values.

It really got me thinking more about this idea that I mentioned above regarding creating a registry that truly reflects your personal style and how you live your life, and this can extend to charitable giving as well. Some ideas include: adding items to your registry that give some or all of their profits to charity; including items that are made within economic collectives in developing countries; directing some or all of your registry gifts to the charity(ies) of your choice; donating to charity in lieu of favors; or, organizing shower and/or bachelor/ette activities around doing something for your local community.
We’d love to know if this idea of incorporating a charity component into your wedding is something you’re doing or would consider. Please feel free to share your thoughts!

Event photos from Sofia Negron Photography.