Is It Taboo to Ask Your Wedding Guests for Money?

Today’s marriages aren’t what they used to be, and that means gift-giving at weddings has got to evolve.

In the not-so-distant past, it was common for couples not to have moved in together before saying “I do.” After the wedding, since the bride and groom would be living together for the first time, it made sense to thrust boatloads of blenders and electric mixers into their arms; after all, they’d never had a kitchen to furnish.

But today—and particularly in New York, where sky-high rents often make living separately before marriage economically, well, impossible—plenty of couples already share a home before they tie the knot. For Simon Baldwin and Tom Holt, co-founders of wedding registry service Envelope, that means couples need a way to request money from their guests instead, in lieu of typical wedding guests.

“It’s clear the needs and desires of modern couples have changed in the past decade,” Mr. Baldwin told the Observer. “Census data from 2012 showed two-thirds of couples married that year lived together before they walked down the aisle.”

“That’s a lot of people who don’t want or need more toasters.”

With Envelope, which launched earlier this month, couples can make wedding registries wherein guests contribute money to fund experiences—like honeymoons or dinners out or concert tickets. It offers a way for couples to request money instead of physical gifts, but in a way that’s more tactful than “please bring us cash.”

Mr. Baldwin insisted that, according to research, “despite a desire for the gift-giver to want to give unsolicited gifts, when they are provided with specific requests, or asked for a monetary contribution toward specific items, their satisfaction actually increases.”

He also cited research from the University of Pennsylvania that shows “giving ‘experiences’ rather than ‘things’ makes both the giver and the receiver happier and more connected.”

“Further research by the University of Pennsylvania also shows that giving ‘experiences’ rather than ‘things’ makes both the giver and the receiver happier and more connected,” he said.