If youâre the type of person who doesnât feel comfortable asking people to buy you stuff, setting up a wedding registry can feel a little disingenuous. After all, registries are rarely people focused, and planning a wedding is all about peopleâyour family, your guests, and yourselvesâand sometimes those people can get lost while walking through a store and zapping bar codes. This is where Thankful Registry steps onstage and, with a small clearing of the throat, reminds you that thereâs actually a universal wedding registry that puts gratitude first instead of stuff.
Thankful Registry has taken the traditional wedding registry process and turned it into something that is downright pleasant to buildâand in the world of wedding planning, thatâs saying something. Hereâs how Thankful Registry works:
Designed with you and your guests in mind
Thankful Registry is available for a one-time fee of , which covers your registry for a whole year. The reason itâs not free? Because they want your registry to be an authentic reflection of you and your partner, not about the brands that give them a kickback every time they sell a hundred sets of flatware. Says founder Kathy Cheng:
I was a bridesmaid in a wedding in 2007 and I was late to the registry, so I got my friend a $200 blender because there was nothing left. A few months later, she told me it was in storage because she didnât have room in her kitchen. She felt embarrassed and I was upset. I created Thankful with the idea of maximizing the registry experience. Our number one priority is customization, so that itâs your registry and not Crate & Barrelâs.
Ultimate Flexibility
Once your Thankful Registry is set up, itâs all about flexibility: you can add items from literally any store, in any currency. So if youâve got international guests, you can save them the extra step of Googling âCAD to USA dollarsâ and figuring out just how much the gift will cost. You can also link your registry with the charitable donation of your choice, in case you prefer that over physical items. You can add anything, so whether itâs HeForShe, Save the Children, or Heifer International (or any other organization youâre partial to), guests can contribute to the causes you believe in under your name. And as an added bonus, they even have a PayPal interface, making cash gifts easy and impossible to lose in the wedding shuffle (which happens more often than youâd like to think).
A gentler tone
Of course, when it comes to asking for wedding gifts in the first place, tone is everything. Thatâs why Thankful Registry has prioritized freedom of choice for both you and your guests. Say you want to visit Australia for your honeymoon. As youâll see in this sample registry, you can ask your guests for donations and travel tips. That way your Aunt Jamie can chip in $50 toward the trip and tell you all about that amazing coffee shop she happened upon in Melbourne, making it more of a personalized gift and less of a monetary transaction. And with Thankful Registry, your guests can rest assured that the gift they buy you is always the gift you receive.
Total Privacy
From the beginning, Thankful Registry makes it clear that you can opt in for total privacy. Instead of being readily available to the public, your registry will be safe from any future Google searchesâAKA your boss canât pull up your ages old wedding registry and judge your hire-ability based on your choice of bathroom linens. Instead, your info and the information of your guests is totally safe.
In a perfect world, your wedding registry would be many things: easy to create, filled with the things you genuinely love and didnât feel pressured to ask for, and a joy for your friends and family to navigate. And while itâs not a perfect world exactly, Thankful Registry gets pretty damn close.
Ready to take a bite? Check out sample registries, and get ready to build your own THANKFUL REGISTRY experience.
