How To Have A Sustainable Wedding Gift Registry

Sustainable brides and grooms … and wedding guests … basically everyone … this one’s for you! So you’re in the midst of planning your sustainable wedding, and you arrive at the gift registry. How can you set yourself up for success to achieve a sustainable wedding gift registry? I’m so glad you asked! This blog post will break down the three best ways to transform your wedding registry into a *sustainable experience* for you and for your guests. 

1. Ask your guests to stick to the registry. 

In my almost-30 years of living, I have encountered people that – no matter what – think that they know what a newly married couple wants or needs better than the couple does. Sometimes it’s something that’s actually useful, like a set of glass food storage containers. And sometimes it’s a LIVE-LAUGH-LOVE wall hanging that doesn’t match the decor of the couples’ home and will just end up in the “donate” box (by the way, if you have one of those in your house, I’m sure it’s lovely, it’s just not my style haha). That is a) not very sustainable for anyone, and b) you’ve lost the opportunity to receive a wedding gift that you will actually use. Anyways, the point is that you are going through a lot of trouble to create a sustainable wedding gift registry (the fact that you’re reading this blog post is proof of that), and you would probably much rather have the things on your registry instead of some random thing that someone found and thought you might like. But how do you politely persuade your guests to stick to the registry? 

1. When creating your registry, be sure to choose items that are a variety of prices. If everything is over $300, guests who aren’t prepared to spend that much money buying your wedding gift will look elsewhere. Also, if the china dishes you love are $25 each but you want an eight piece set, register for each piece separately. That way, if someone comes along and can only buy one or two pieces, they can stick to the registry without spending $$$$. 
2. Include in your invitation (or wherever you are communicating the registry to your guests) a note that explains why you want your guests to stick to the registry. Maybe you’ve lived on your own for several years and you only registered for the things you actually need. Or maybe you have a specific aesthetic that you want your house to be decorated in (yes, I do consider “sustainable” to be an aesthetic). Whatever the reason, communicate it with your guests so that they will understand where you’re coming from. I promise it will help keep people on the registry.
3. Resist the urge to register on more than one website. From the perspective of a wedding guest, when I see that someone has registered on more than one website, I automatically assume (based on previous experiences) that they’ve probably registered for quite a few duplicate items, and it’s possible that they don’t even know what’s on the registry. If your guests don’t feel that you’ve intentionally created a registry of things you actually love, they don’t have any incentive to purchase anything from the registry.  

2. Choose a sustainable registry. 

I hate to break it to you, but – although I will admit that it is convenient – Amazon isn’t a very sustainable option when it comes to your wedding gift registry (check out this blog post from the owner of a zero waste shop in Tacoma, WA – I started following her while I was doing my travel nurse assignment there in the summer of 2021 – the first half of the post talks about why we shouldn’t be shopping at Amazon in the first place, and the second half talks about where we can shop instead). While researching for this blog post, I found a few sustainable registry options that are really cool:

1. Everlastly – this company has curated a collection of items that a) spans different price ranges, b) includes several different cash fund options, and c) each item is given a sustainability rating (by them) which is broken down to explain how it got that rating 

2. Made Trade – there is so much to love about this company, but my favorite things are that it is a) women owned, b) climate neutral certified, and c) a family-run small business

3. I’m sure there are so many more sustainable registry options, but you have to be willing to put in the work to look for them and research what their sustainability efforts are! It will be worth it.

3. Give your guests some fun options for cash funds. 

What’s the most sustainable gift of all? Money! But, if there’s one thing that people seem to hate, it’s straight up giving the gift of cash (although, to be honest, it’s what I want the most). If you are asking for money, give people some different suggestions on gift cards or experiences that you would enjoy. For example: 

1. Your favorite thrift shop in the area 
2. Your favorite zero waste shop in the area 
3. Your favorite restaurant for a date night 
4. An activity you and your partner can do together – skydiving, a pottery class, couples massage, etc.
5. Your local hardware store if you’re needing to do some home upgrades
6. The airline that flies from your nearest airport 
7. This list could go on and on and on, but I think you get the picture 😉 

One more thing … 

Now that you are equipped with the knowledge to create the sustainable wedding gift registry of your dreams, I want to leave you with one final bonus nugget – a few scripts to help you ask people for the wedding gifts you actually want: 

“Thank you so much for thinking of us! Please, please, please do not buy us anything, as between the two of us we already have doubles of nearly everything. Instead, we would love to travel and do some home repairs, and your donations will mean a lot more to us than material things. Feel free to send money in the way most comfortable to you!”

“We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives who care about us as much as you do! As we start our lives together, we are striving to create a sustainable household. For that reason, we kindly ask that you only purchase items that are listed on our carefully created registry. If you prefer to send us money, there is a cash fund option included in the registry. Thank you so much!”

I hope this post was helpful, let me know in the comments if you have any other tips for creating a sustainable wedding gift registry! 

I’m a wife, a dog mom, a foodie, a wanderer, a registered nurse, and a couples/intimate wedding/elopement photographer … and this blog will cover it all! If you enjoyed this post, first of all thank you, and second of all please follow me on Instagram + Facebook to get updates on future blog posts, see sneak peeks of my amazing couples, and so much more! If you have any questions about elopement photography, my journey from nursing to photography, or my time spent as a full-time RVer, drop a comment and I just might write a blog post answering your question (but I definitely will)!

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