Travel Wedding Registry

Toaster or Tahiti, flatware or Fiji, bedding or the Bahamas? It's your big day, so spend time in the perfect destination rather than spending it returning unwanted carving knives and duplicate glassware.

Toaster or Tahiti, flatware or Fiji, bedding or the Bahamas? It's your big day, so spend time in the perfect destination rather than spending it returning unwanted carving knives and duplicate glassware. Although not a new concept, travel gift registries are gaining in popularity and acceptance and will help make your travel wishes a reality without breaking the budget.

After forking out $20, 000 to $50, 000 for the wedding, the average American couple will generally end up spending around $4, 000 on their honeymoon, making the entire experience a costly one and if at least the travel component of that burden can be alleviated, some of the financial pressure can be lifted off the couple so they can concentrate purely on the enjoyment aspect.

Although there are dozens of individual registry companies and travel agencies that provide the gift registry facility, there are a handful of main companies that operate the larger and more recognized registries - Traveler's Joy; The Big Day; Honeymoon Wishes; and The Honeymoon. Fees for using these sites vary, but each has a cost for usage for either the honeymoon couple or the gift giver, ranging from 7.5% of total value to around 10%. These fees pay for the credit card processing, the set up of your individual travel web page and added extras like e-vites, invitation insert templates, and online or phone customer service. On initial comparison, Traveler's Joy appears to have the lowest fees at 7.5% and that is paid by the gift receivers as a member fee (I do have a bone to pick grammatically with Traveler's Joy though - their company name features the apostrophe in the wrong place - after all I am sure they are catering to more than one traveler).