A Full Guide to Creating an Online Wedding Registry or Wedding List
Mazal Tov!
Your wedding day is one of the most special and beautiful days of your life. It’s a huge personal milestone, and a public declaration of your love for your partner, your commitment to build a new life together, and (hopefully) to start a family.
A Jewish wedding is traditionally a major community event. It’s not unusual for modern Jewish weddings in the US to have guest lists that run into hundreds of people. A wedding is a major opportunity for extended families and friends to come together and celebrate, and to strengthen social and business ties in the community.
During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, New York State Governor Cuomo took the extraordinary step of curbing the guest list for a planned Jewish wedding in Williamsburg. One of the couple was a grandchild of Satmar Grand Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitlebaum. The Hasidic ceremony was expected to include an estimated 10,000 guests!
Wedding Gift Etiquette
The other main reason why Jewish wedding ceremonies traditionally included a large part of the community, was that guests would help the newlyweds to set up a home together. The financial burden of acquiring furniture and household items could be shared by friends and family. Wedding guests would offer presents, or gifts of money, in full knowledge that their kindness would be returned when their own children married, or they had a family event like a Bar Mitzvah or Brit Milah.
The tradition continues today, and wedding guests arrive at the ceremony (or the reception) with either an envelope containing money, or a gift. It’s a great opportunity to provide practical help to a newly married couple, and to enable them establish a new home and the foundation for starting a family. Each Jewish community has its own informal rules and wedding gift etiquette. One way to keep things simple is for the bride and groom to create a wedding registry (also called a wedding list) and simply request the items that they’ll need to start their new life together.
What is a Wedding Registry?
A Jewish wedding is a wonderful event, but it’s also a major logistical effort that requires detailed planning and coordination – as well as a lot of family diplomacy. Even a perfectly planned wedding can generate a lot of stress during the preceding months, it’s vital to be organized and to keep everything as simple and convenient as possible!
A wedding registry or list is a practical way to deal with the complex issue of wedding gifts. Instead of having dozens – perhaps hundreds – of wedding gift conversations with guests, the couple simply creates a list of the items they want. In a stroke of marketing genius, US department stores started offering wedding registries a century ago. They realized that in exchange for the minor investment of printing personalized catalogs for engaged couples, they’d secure hundreds of orders.
A modern wedding registry is a lot more convenient. If you know what kind of wedding gifts you want, it takes just a few minutes to open a virtual wedding registry with an online store. The store will give you a private login and all the tools you need to create your registry – it’s effectively a wishlist. You can send each confirmed wedding guest a link to your personal wedding registry. They can browse through it and choose which gifts to buy.
As soon as one of your guests buys an item on your online wedding registry, it will be automatically deleted from the list. The registry is private and other guests can’t see who bought which items. Only you will know who gave each individual gift, and there will be no public embarrassment if someone is on a tight budget.
The Advantages of an Online Wedding Registry
There are several advantages to opening an online wedding registry a few months before your actual wedding.
- You can decide what gifts you actually need. There’s always at least one guest at every wedding who uses the opportunity to unload a useless and unwanted item in the guise of a wedding present.
- If you have multiple requirements for your new home and married life, you can set up a few different online wedding registries. You can send links to guests according to their budgets and how close they are to you personally.
- A wedding registry is convenient for you and for your guests. You can organize everything in one go, your guests can do their wedding shopping and buy your gift in a couple of minutes. They’ll be spared any worries about whether they’ve bought the right model, or color etc.
- An online wedding registry allows for plenty of flexibility. Gifts are important, but the sentiment behind them is what really matters. A wedding registry is the online equivalent of a sealed envelope. Only you and the giver know what was given, and you know the real love and kindness behind the gift.
- An online wedding registry makes logistics easy. There are none of the security issues involved when hundreds of guests arrive at the venue with envelopes full of cash, nor do you need to go to the bank and deposit a bag full of checks. You definitely won’t have to schlep a truckload of gift wrapped boxes home from the olam either.
How to Register Wedding Gifts at an Online Judaica Store
An increasing number of Jewish couples are opting to register wedding gifts at online Judaica stores like NadavArt. These can be either limited registries that are shared with a handful of guests, or a main wedding registry that includes handmade silver tableware, and modern Judaica home decor items. There’s a popular misconception that Judaica is limited to old fashioned religious and ritual items. A new generation of wedding guests is discovering the beauty and versatility of modern Judaica.
If you decide to create a wedding registry with an online Judaica store, you can get started in just minutes. The first step is to complete a simple online form and leave your contact details. Boutique online Judaica Stores from Israel like NadavArt have English speaking representatives who specialize in handling wedding lists. Your representative will talk to you about your overall requirements and get an idea of your personal tastes and estimated budget.
Choose Judaica Gifts for your Wedding List
Your representative will then give you a virtual tour of the 2022 Judaica collections (including any special items that aren’t displayed in the online store). You’ll get a rundown on different materials like 925 sterling silver, anodized aluminum, ceramics, pewter, advanced polymer compounds, and a range of other traditional and contemporary Judaica materials.
Your rep will also explain about the different styles of decoration and ornamentation that are available. These include traditional Jewish Yemenite silver filigree work, silver beading and silver solder designs, silver stamping (often combined with brightly colored enamel inlays) and the addition of gems and semi-precious stones like polished Israeli Amethysts, lapis, and pink onyx.
If you’re interested, your wedding registry representative will give you some fascinating insights into traditional Jewish silversmithing techniques and related craftsmanship. It’s also possible to schedule a Zoom tour of the Jerusalem workshop. If you’re visiting Israel before your wedding, the team at NadavArt will be delighted to welcome you in person
What Gifts are Normal to Put on a Wedding Registry?
It’s normal for couples to put household items and consumer durables on a wedding registry, but there are no hard and fast rules. A wedding is a joyous occasion and a time for celebration. The general preference for putting practical items on a wedding list is simply because it takes a lot of money to create a beautiful and comfortable home. If you’re setting up a house together as a newly married couple you’ll possibly need everything from a new microwave, to bath towels, to a cutlery set. The countless basics like duvets and bed linen, crockery and garden furniture soon add up to serious money.
Religious couples often put ritual Judaica items like a menorah, silver Kiddush cup, or etrog box on their wedding registry. Silver candlesticks for Shabbat are usually a priority item and havdalah sets or netilat yadayim are also very popular. A basic Shabbat set also includes a challah board and challah knife, and perhaps a silver candle lighter and match cover, a liquor set or wine fountain and any combination of silver trays, plates, serving spoons, forks and napkin rings.
Often, a couple will see a beautiful work of art or home decor when they browse through the online Judaica collections. There are also a multitude of small gifts that are normal to put on a wedding registry. Mezuzah cases, tzedakah boxes, honey dishes for Rosh HaShanah, Pesach plates or Seder plates are great small additions to a Jewish wedding registry. They are beautiful items to own and are ideal ‘extras’ to complement a main gift. They are also ideal for guests who are giving on a tight budget.
Is it Tacky not to have a Wedding Registry?
No, not at all. There is nothing tacky or weird about not having a wedding registry. Your wedding is a deeply personal event and it’s entirely up to you how you organize it! Most couples have a wedding registry for the sake of convenience – both for themselves and for their guests. If you already live together, or both have plenty of household items or consumer durables, you may prefer cash gifts. A wedding registry is completely pointless.
Some newly married couples have unusual personal circumstances. They might be planning to work abroad, take an extended round the world honeymoon, or to make aliyah and move to Israel. Accumulating a stack of new belongings might be an inconvenience at this stage of their marriage. Other couples just don’t care about gifts and material things. If you’re planning a very simple wedding, with a limited guest list, you may prefer to let your guests use their imagination and surprise you. It’s your wedding and you should never feel pressured to follow other people’s conventions. If you are keen to acquire some beautiful (and practical) Judaica items, an online wedding registry is simply the most convenient way to organize things.
There isn’t a special Jewish wedding gift registry. Modern Reform or secular Jewish couples generally need exactly the same things as any other newly wed couple. The wedding list usually covers the full gamut of kitchenware, tableware, bed linens, furniture and consumer durables. A modern American or European home needs all the same basics, regardless of who lives in it.
A specific Jewish wedding gift registry can usually be taken care of by an online Judaica store. Even secular couples often find that they want their home to have a cultural link to their Jewish heritage. That might be as simple as a mezuzah next to the front door, a Jewish candelabra for the Shabbat dining table, or a tzedakah box for the hall table. Couples who plan to start a family shortly after their wedding might add dreidels or other children’s Judaica to their Jewish wedding gift registry. A traditional hanukkah menorah is a family favorite, as are etrog boxes and megillah cases for purim.
Judaica Wedding Gifts
If you’re planning to get married this year, or have friends or family members who are getting married, Judaica wedding gifts are a unique wedding day extra. The finest items of (modern and traditional) Judaica are handmade in Israel. Jewish master craftsmen and silversmiths like Avi Nadav learned their art as children. They are often the third or fourth generation of a family to produce handmade Judaica. Artisanal skills that were once found across the Jewish communities of Europe and the Middle East are now concentrated in Jerusalem.
Judaica wedding gifts can be easily personalized with a choice of dedications, blessings, or Jewish emblems and motifs. If you have any preferences about receiving personalized Judaica wedding gifts, it’s important to mention it when you talk to a representative and create your Jewish wedding registry. Every Jewish home should have some cultural links to Judaism and the holy city of Jerusalem. Judaica wedding gifts not only celebrate your marriage, they celebrate thousands of years of tradition – and your Jewish identity!
To our Wedding Registry Page which explains the entire wedding registration process and includes a discount calculator that will show you what amazing discounts you get on the items in your wedding registration, please click here
