Spring is in the air and that means one thing: the wedding season is barreling down upon us.
And that leads to the question of gifts.
I have no problem with gifts. In fact, I sometimes joke that the best way to get a matching set of pots and a kitchenaid mixer is just to get married. But now, thanks to No Impact Man, I have discovered the coolest gift registry ever: the alternative gift registry.
You can sign up to make an online list of things you really want without being tied to a store, or, better, yet, tied to material goods.
The idea is that you can suggest things that you want without having to specify brand new items all the time. You could ask for a secondhand microwave, or money towards a trip, or a piece of art, or a one-off item from a local store, or even volunteer hours. You just provide the description and indicate how people give this gift (ie buy online, donate here, buy in person at this store).
Of course, this goes for baby showers and other “gifting” events as well. You could request slightly used baby clothes or for all your friends to sign up to make you meals for the first couple weeks. To me this makes more sense than a) getting all brand new stuff or b) not registering and ending up with 30 pink frilly dresses and not a single diaper.
It almost makes me wish I had something to register for. ..
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Mr. Savvy and I set up a registry with the Alternative Gift Registry website. So far, we’ve only gotten positive responses about it — although I guess if people had an issues with the registry, they wouldn’t complain to us! We asked for people to bring pies to the wedding.
That’s fantastic! Love that idea! Definitely what I’m going to be using from now on when the family insist on buying presents!
Thanks for visiting my site, will be checking in here too, as always 🙂
That registry is a great idea. Another idea I came across is some friends of mine who were married last year sent out wedding invitations and in them said no gifts, as they wanted only donations to two different causes and just had boxes out at the wedding party for guests to put their donations into. . . I thought that this was a pretty sweet idea too.