Register for Anything!

Online cash gift registries are increasing in popularity. This innovative concept offers a new way to give and receive gifts. These registries look and feel like traditional registries but they allow a couple to register for anything they want by listing the gift, and breaking its price down into "gift segments" that their guests can purchase. Ultimately the couple gets cash to buy the gifts.

These registries allow couples the total freedom to personalize their registry and request the items they really want without being constrained by what any one store stocks, and without being forced to only register for items within a certain price range. www.AGreatAffair.com and other cash gift registries allow couples to register for traditional items like toasters, blenders and cookware -- but they also allow couples to register for their honeymoon, a new car, to payoff debt, even a family pet!

A cash registry is a convenient, online service that allows couples to skip shopping around at various stores - instead the registry can be created from the comfort of your own home computer. Also, as charitable donations are down due to the economic downturn, some sites are encouraging couples to include a charity on their registry by promising to donate a portion of their profits to charity.

Wedding Cakes

Most engaged couples get sticker shock when they learn how much wedding cakes can cost. On top of that, there are a lot of decisions a couple has to make about their cake...what style? how tall? what fillings? Here are a few things to keep in mind when selecting your cake:

1. Ask your reception location if they could provide the cake - sometimes they can provide a better price as part of a package with the location than the price you can get from a bakery.

2. Don't get more cake than you need. Many couples get a bigger cake than they need because they believe a taller, wider cake creates a more beautiful presence. A quick trick, ask your bakery to include as many hollow layers as you want at the bottom of the cake -- they can cover it with the same outer icing that the real cake is made out of and neither you nor your guests will be able to tell the difference...and your pictures will be beautiful.

3. If you can't agree on the filling, go with both of your choices. Cakes can easily be baked with different fillings in each of the layers - you don't have to deside between strawberry shortcake and chocolate.

4. If you are on a tight budget, skip the decorative designs on the cake -- all that scuplting with the icing costs dearly. Instead, dress up your cake with some flower petals.

Enjoy your cake!!

Honeymoon Registries

Honeymoon registries are becoming more and more popular among couples, especially as the cost of honeymoons increase. Honeymoon registries are easy to use and allow a couple to register for any part of their honeymoon - from airfare, to hotel, to meals, tours or spa days. Couples list the parts of their honeymoon, and their guests purchase "gift segments" towards those items. For instance, if a couple needs $2000 for their hotel, they can request 40 gift segments of $50 each. Guests can purchase as may of the $50 gift segments as they want towards the hotel gift on the registry. By allowing guests to purchase gift segments towards specific gifts, it is a much more personal gift-giving experience than handing a check and not having any idea what it is spent on. By purchasing parts of identifiable gifts, a honeymoon registry looks and feels much like a traditional registry from the guests' perspective.

Most honeymoon registries charge a fee for the service, but you should never pay a fee unless it is collected from gifts made through the registry. Some honeymoon registries will add the fee to the gift that the guest is making, others will deduct the fee from the cash gift before forwarding the money to the couple...and some sites give the couple a choice between what fee structure they want. Usually the fee is less than what your guests would have paid on sales tax, gift wrapping and shipping a traditional gift.

Honeymoon registries are easy to set up - and are easy for guests to use. Another great thing about honeymoon registries is that a couple can sit up from the comfort of their own home computer - rather than driving around town registering in the neigborhood stores. A honeymoon registry can be the only registry a couple set up, or it can be an alternative to a more traditional registry. Suprisingly, couples may find that their guests would prefer to gift towards the making of a wonderful honeymoon memory over new towels and linens.