Organizing your wedding registry together is one of the most fun and exciting things you’ll get to do during the wedding planning process! As you fill your registry, you’ll get to imagine what your future will look like together, how you’ll set up your home, and what your days will be filled with. While the pots & pans and fancy kitchen gadgets are wonderful items to add to your registry, it’s also equally important to include experience-based items! Things like trips, places to visit, ways to spend time together, and ways to maximize your time together! We’ve rounded up our absolute must-have experience-based wedding registry items that will have you asking why you didn’t think of them first! Keep reading for more!
1) Napa Valley Dinner Train
Want to feel like you’ve stepped back in time? This Napa Valley Dinner train experience is the perfect date night getaway! The vibes are far more romantic than your standard night on the town date. Plus, your guests will love knowing they got to contribute to a super special evening for just the two of you! It’s crazy romantic, and, if we’re being honest, we might be a little jealous if you snag this fab experience on your wedding registry!
2) Sushi Making Classes
Maybe you can both kinda sorta cook but you want to have fun together honing in on your skills in the kitchen to make your favorite sushi roll! Whether it’s sushi-making classes, learning to grill a perfect steak, or exploring exotic flavors around the world, cooking classes are a fun way to deepen your bond as newlyweds! Check with your local Sur La Table for their schedule of in-store cooking classes and then pop one of their gift cards on your wedding registry in the amount of the class you’re both interested in taking!
3) Annual Passes to Your Local Art Museum
You can purchase that Dyson vacuum cleaner any old time. Skip the standard wedding registry gifts for experience-based items that focus on time as your currency! If quality time together is your love language, as much as it is ours, you can’t go wrong with annual passes or memberships to your favorite local museum. Can you think of a better way to spend your Saturday together than walking around a museum, being inspired by art, and stopping at your favorite coffee shop on the way home?
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4) Honeymoon Funds
First things first! No, it’s not tacky or tasteless to put honeymoon funds on your wedding registry, regardless of what the internet told you! Weddings incur expenses and if you’re planning an experience-based wedding, everything adds up quickly. Especially if you are taking on the expenses yourselves. This leaves many couples putting their honeymoon off for a later date or planning more of a staycation honeymoon.
If you ask us, honeymoons are a literal requirement! Can you think of anything better than jetting off to a fab location together as newlyweds? Because we can’t! If you want to set up a honeymoon fund, you can use a service like Honeyfund or Zola. Honeyfund allows you to set up an account by location or even by one of their all-inclusive partners. While Zola features gift cards for airfare, hotels, Airbnb, or a specialized “cash fund” dedicated to the trip of your dreams! Have your honeymoon covered? You can still set up an account dedicated to an anniversary trip!
5) Meal Delivery Kit
Look, there will be nights when nobody wants to cook, pizza won’t cut it, and heading out to a restaurant is the last thing you want to do! Those jam-packed weekdays that leave you feeling utterly drained sometimes call for something more sumptuous than takeout. But also something that requires half the usual effort of cooking at home. Meal delivery kits are literal perfection in this department! You get a deelish homecooked meal that you can eat on the couch in your sweats. Adding meal delivery kits to your wedding registry is a great way to make sure you’re both covered when those long draining days come in hot. Blue Apron offers up gift cards for their meal delivery kits and their menu offers everything from vegetarian options to fresh fish, classic comforts, and oh so much more!
6) Dance Lessons
Longing for that epic, viral-worthy, first dance moment as newlyweds? Those moments don’t happen without a little practice. Dance lessons are a great way to unwind, have fun, and prepare for the unforgettable first dance at your wedding! And yes, you can add them as a request to your wedding registry. Double-check the websites of the local dance studios you’re interested in to see if they offer gift certificates. If not, no worries! You can set up a funds request specifically dedicated to dance lessons through your Zola account!
7) Couples Massage
Raise your hand if you need a massage every day of your life, because honestly, same! A relaxing couples massage is a great way to wind down after the stresses of wedding planning. If you’re not tempted to use your couples massage immediately, you can save it to use on your anniversary or a random date night. Either way, you can never go wrong with maximum relaxation time and we love seeing this experience-based gift pop up on wedding registries!
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Click here for a full list of features & create your account today!
8) Tickets to Live Events
College football, your fave music festival, comedy shows, theatre, ballet, you name it! If you are a couple who cannot miss your team’s season or you just love a good laugh or a night spent getting lost in an epic theatre performance, tickets to live events are a MUST for your experience-based wedding registry! If you decided to add this fun item to your wedding registry, be specific with friends and family about the teams or shows you are hoping to catch along with any pre-planned travel you have coming up that may interfere with their ability to snag this amazing gift to celebrate your union!
9) Date Night Must-Haves
Your newly minted newlywed status will be all about winding down and being fully present in each other’s company. Doing life, side by side, at home may sound mundane. But at-home date nights are a fun way to drown out the noise of local hot spots while soaking up those private moments together. But date night at home should be more than just cooking and binge-watching Netflix. There are plenty of date night must-haves to add to your registry that can make your first year of marriage experience-based bliss! Some of the items below are our absolute favorites. But, if art supplies, a Nintendo Switch, or scavenger hunts are your mutual hobbies then add any extras to your wedding registry that will feed your fun side!
- Gift Cards For Take Out
- Wine Glasses
- Wine Of The Month Subscriptions
- A Fondue Set
- Couple’s Cookbook
- A Projector
- A Share Size Cozy Blanket
- This Couple’s Adventure Book
- Popcorn Machine
- Trivia & Board Games
10) Personalized Art For Your Home
Of course, we had to include a little something to hang in your home! You’ll have plenty of photos to hang once your wedding photographer delivers your final images. But those gorgeous photos need to be hung side by side with something that truly reflects who you are as a couple, in the nonphysical sense. We love the idea of having your wedding vows, favorite poem, verse, or song lyrics painted on canvas along with your names & the date of your wedding. Not really feeling it and want something extra out of the ordinary? You can add a Starry Map to your wedding registry that will depict the exact alignment of the stars on the date of your wedding! We’re also kind of obsessed with this interlocking heart map that can be customized to include each of your hometowns!
