Did guests buy from your registry or elsewhere?

So far we've only gotten things from our registry. I can imagine going off-registry for a housewarming party (I'd likely show up with something like a nice bottle of wine), but for a wedding I'd definitely stick to the registry. Also, I didn't have a shower, but we've gotten lots of physical gifts already purchased and sent to us.

It would simply never occur to me to look for a registry if I were attending a housewarming. In my experience, housewarmings are not actually gift giving events, although many people bring token items like house plants or bottles of wine. So I don't think your experience then has any bearing on your wedding at all.

The overwhelming majority of people consider weddings as gift giving events, so I think you'll be much more at peace if you just continue with wedding planning and try not to worry about who is going to give you what. You will get a variety of gifts. Enjoy!

I think for weddings, most people expect there to be a registry. That's not often the case for a housewarming.

Additionally, if you have a wedding website, you can put your registry information there, so your guests see that, and know to look there for your gift.

Having said that, there will always be those who go their own way, i.e. bring a random gift from some store you never heard of. This is my Aunt's favorite thing to do. She thinks it makes her unique, where the rest of the family just sees it as her being crazy. lol

I had my shower 2 weeks ago almost and I literally just got group gifts from most people. My cousins couldn't bother to go out or even order a gift on the registry so they gave me a group gift card. His cousins gave a group gift even though they're grown adults and I thought that was strange. Then his parents, grandparents and aunt/uncle chipped in for a grill that wasn't on our registry! This was understandable as it was a $400+ expense. Otherwise everything else was from our registry but my registries didn't physically update for most gifts. Either guests didn't mark things off as bought or it just didn't work both at Walmart and BB&B. I find it hard to believe people don't understand how to use a gift registry at this point but ya never know. At least a third of my gifts weren't marked off and I had to go in and do so. I got two doubles of items, one of which I am returning. I just chucked the extra spoon rest I got in the box with our old kitchen stuff that we'll save for future kids in college (mostly because they didn't give me the gift receipt for this item and I didn't feel like asking). I think wedding showers are more gift giving whereas weddings people bring cash/check.