Cash Fund

We did a honeymoon fund as well as registered for physical gifts. I think they are great. If someone has a problem with it, then they will not donate to it.

I'm thinking of asking for a cash fund as well but more so because we already own a house and want to make some renovations before starting our family! We don't have many gifts we want, so I'm not a huge fan of the registry. I had planned to put something on the site like "In lieu of gifts, we are asking for money donations to fund our home renovations that are needed before we are able to start a family" or something like that. It's hard because a lot of people already have a house together and all the stuff they need before they get married in this day and age, so registries aren't really necessary anymore. Hopefully some more people can give some tips on what is "rude"!

You'll find a lot of people think it is rude to straight up ask for money via a fund. However, I think it's fine if you have physical gifts too that people can choose from. The ones who don't want to give money can buy a gift instead.

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On Zola they have an actual way to setup a cash fund for renovations on houses if you want to check it out.

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Awesome, thanks so much!

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I agree! I only have physical gifts on their right now. I'm indecisive about adding the honey moon fund.

Aside from the view that it is rude, I personally find cash funds to be kind of pointless. If you don't register, most people default to cash anyway. These cash funds take a percentage of the money (either from you or from the gift giver). They are an unnecessary middleman that takes a cut. Don't register, or only register for a few key pieces (we registered for certain upgrades we wanted), and people will either buy something off that registry or give you cash. There may be the random person or two who just decide to give you something they decide to give you, but those people usually do that regardless of the registry. There isn't any point in giving Zola 3% of your gift money or forcing your guests to pay an additional 3% tax on their gift to you.

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We were in the same boat and were also torn on if we should have a honeymoon fund. FH and I bought a house together back in April and merged all our stuff. We don't have a whole lot we need physical gift wise, so the gifts on our registries are upgrades or nice to have items (like an air fryer lol). I think it's definitely a know your audience type of thing! All our guests will be traveling to our wedding so we aren't expecting a whole lot gift wise anyways.

Cash funds usually take a fee out, so it essentially robs your guests of their money. Most guests already know cash makes a good gift, so if you don't register or have a very small one people will get the hint and give cash.

View Quoted Comment This is exactly what we did and exactly what I was going to say so just read this comment again and pretend I said it 😂

& we got $2000 worth of contributions to our honeyfund 😱 plus my FIL last minute gave us an extra $500 for the honeymoon so the majority of our trip was paid for 😍 we also sent photos of the specific things people had contributed to (swimming with dolphins, drinks by the pool, etc) which they seemed to really appreciate.

View Quoted Comment Sending photos is such a great idea! I never thought I’d that! Thanks for sharing! We may do that too!

View Quoted Comment Yeah it was great! We also broke down the honeymoon fund to things we specifically were going to do, so people could feel like they were getting us a specific experience rather than just contributing to a fund. We had friends who were telling us they really enjoyed feeling like they “bought” us a night out at our hotel’s jazz bar or something. Rather than just contributing to random honeymoon expenses. Does that make sense?

It was nice too because then when we were doing those specific things on our honeymoon, we thought of those particular people. When we paid the bill, we would be like “thanks so-and-so!” Haha. And then sent the photos to that person too and they seemed so happy to see that they had given us that experience

Quick rant here - I don't know why people keep spreading around misinformation about honeymoon funds taking a "cut" of your money. Zola and The Knot, for example, set aside 2.5% of the money to cover credit card transaction fees. They don't profit from your honeymoon fund. Read the fine print instead of just making an assumption!

https://help.zola.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002836332-How-do-we-select-who-covers-the-2-5-credit-card-processing-fee-

https://www.theknot.com/content/cash-registry-the-newlywed-fund

That being said, honeymoon funds are pretty widely accepted in my circles. I see them at about half the weddings I attend. We're doing a Zola honeymoon fund as well as small registries of traditional gifts for people who think asking for money is tacky. Our Zola honeymoon fund is broken up into lots of small cash funds so that guests can contribute towards whichever item they like (flights, hotels, meals, day trips, etc.).

One of my friends who used a honeymoon fund for her Greece honeymoon a few years back included pictures of her and her husband doing the honeymoon fund item we purchased for them in the thank you card - (we contributed towards a tour of ancient Corinth). It was a super sweet touch.

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If you have a large wedding and only "fund" registries, that could be upwards of $500 in transaction fees. People can write you checks or give you cash and it would cost nothing in transaction fees.

I'm not a fan, but i'd never tell another bride what to do. A large amounts of people are offended by being flat out asked for money or a honeymoon. I do agree though that if Zola has the option and it's what you want add it and if people don't want to do it they won't. It really is up to you

I used that website for my honeymoon funds ! The only issue I guess is they always take out a percentage

I just skipped the registry altogether, people will get the hint !