How to Create a House Fund for Your Wedding Registry

How to Create a House Fund for Your Wedding Registry

You’re marrying the person of your dreams, and your wedding is the perfect time to make progress towards another important milestone: buying your first home together.

These days, most people already live on their own or with their significant other. They likely have most of the household items they need. But they may not own the home yet.

Fifty-two percent of first-time homebuyers get help from friends and family to buy their first home. It’s gaining popularity and cultural acceptance to ask for cash gifts towards a down payment on your first home (or another savings goal) instead of traditional wedding registry items.

Is this a worthwhile ask? Let’s do the math. Most wedding guests give an average of about $100 per attendee. If you invite 50 people to your wedding, that’s $5,000. 100 people? That’s $10,000. Both of those numbers could give your down payment fund a meaningful bump.

We built a tool to help you start a down payment fund you can use for your wedding registry and make the process of requesting and receiving house fund contributions easier for you and your wedding guests.

Asking for money instead of gifts: what’s the etiquette?

It can feel awkward to request cash, especially because of years of tradition wrapped up in physical gift-giving. What’s the best way to request money instead, tactfully and politely?

#1: Give a reason why

Your loved ones want to help – and when you tell them about your goal, you’re giving them a chance to be a part of your home buying journey.

However, there are some occasions that may warrant a physical gift, such as a bridal shower. You can do both – create a down payment fund and build out a small wedding registry. This gives your friends and family options if they’d like to give you something you can unwrap at a time of celebration.

#2: Word your request politely and clearly

You want cash instead of gifts – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the way you tell your wedding guests is important. You can effectively communicate this in a friendly, unassuming way. Here are some examples:

  • Wedding invitation: Your presence at our wedding is gift enough, but if you’d like to honor our love with a cash gift, all contributions will go towards our future home purchase.
  • Wedding website: The most important gift you could share is your presence at our celebration, but if you’d like to also give cash, a contribution towards our future home purchase is appreciated.
  • In conversation: We are blessed with all of the home furnishings and household items we need, so if guests would like to contribute towards our future together, we’d gratefully accept a cash gift. We’re putting all gifts towards our future down payment.

#3: Make it easy

The standard way wedding guests give cash gifts is by bringing a card with a personal check inside to your wedding. In some cases, they may include a gift card instead of cash.

But what if they don’t fill the check out correctly? What if they can’t attend, so they mail a card and a check and it’s lost in the mail? Not to mention, you can’t use gift cards towards a down payment.

An online house fund acting as your wedding registry is the solution when you’re foregoing gifts and want to build up your down payment.

It’s simple:

  • Set up your down payment savings account
  • Add your profile photo
  • Share your personalized URL
  • Contributions are automatically added to your down payment savings account
house fund setup flow

Here’s how to get started.

3 steps to setting up down payment gifts with Gravy

#1: Download Gravy and set up a down payment savings account

First things first: get the Gravy app.

Next, to create a house fund as a wedding registry page, you’ll need to open a Gravy Savings Account so all cash gifts have somewhere to go. You also must subscribe to Gravy+ to access the down payment gifts feature.

Bonus: there are a ton of cool things you can accomplish with Gravy –

  • Set a down payment goal
  • Check your mortgage credit
  • Get 5% cash back on your rent in the form of Gravy Rewards

#2: Create your profile and share the link with friends, family – even your employer!

On your account page, click “down payment gifts” and follow the steps to set up your profile. You’ll get a unique web page with your name, picture, and instructions to let folks know how to make a contribution.

You can add this link to your wedding website, or you could add the URL to your wedding invitations so people know how best to contribute to your house fund. While many may still bring cards on your wedding day, having a digital way to collect cash gifts makes the process easier and less stressful.

Pro Tip: Print out a QR code for your Gravy house fund and put it on the gift card table (or on the bar) to give guests a way to make contributions while celebrating on the big day!

Check out Ashley and Jake’s wedding website! They shared a beautiful story of how they met and what guests can expect at their destination wedding, and see if you can spy the Gravy house fund link at the end.

house fund public profile

#3: Watch your house fund grow

As you wait for your big day to arrive, it’s exciting to watch your house fund grow. Another way to quickly watch this total grow is to set up an automatic deposit each month, plus Gravy Savings Accounts offer interest that is over 20x the national average!

Better yet, as a Gravy user you’ll also accrue rent rewards at the same time – 5% back on your rent payment. Soon enough, you’ll have thousands in your house fund and potentially thousands more in Gravy Rewards, speeding up your house buying timeline.

Download Gravy today

Learn more about how Gravy works, and download the app today to start your house fund and accelerate your path to owning your first home.

Will Dunn
Will Dunn
Gravy Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer
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