Most wedding gifts peak on day one. These are gifts that arrive at year one, year five, year ten.
A wedding registry is a strange ritual: the one moment everyone you love wants to invest in your marriage, and we spend it on housewares. This is a registry for the marriage instead. Some gifts unlock at an anniversary. Some quietly compound. Some are skills, banked before you need them. Think of them as Easter eggs planted in your future: levels the two of you unlock together.
At most weddings, the officiant asks the room to promise to uphold this marriage, and everyone says we will. Then everyone buys the couple a toaster. This registry is how the room keeps its word. More below ↓
The Registry
six milestones, eighteen gifts
♥
The Wedding Day
sealed today, opened later
The Letter Box$0
free
Every guest writes the couple a letter: advice, a prediction, a memory of them. Sealed at the reception, opened on the fifth anniversary.
The Wedding Wine$300
a ritual
A case of wine from your wedding year. One bottle per anniversary: drink the first at year one, save the last for twenty-five. The cellar empties as the marriage fills.
The Compounding Gift$500
a fund
Instead of the stand mixer, the same money goes into the couple's investment account, earmarked for the tenth anniversary. $500 today is roughly $1,000 by then. It grows while the marriage does.
I
Year One
the steepest year
The Marriage Library$100
five books
The five books the research actually supports, from John Gottman's Seven Principles to Sue Johnson, Esther Perel, and Alain de Botton. One arrives each anniversary for the first five years. Even the reading is time-released.
Twelve Date Nights$100 × 12
an experience
One funded night out per month for the first year. It's the habit that's easiest to build now and hardest to start later. Guests can each take a month.
The Annual Portrait$150 × 5
a tradition
The same two people, photographed every anniversary by the same photographer. Five years of the same pose, changing slowly. The album that makes itself.
The Tune-Up Session$250
a skill
One couples-counseling session, pre-paid and taken while things are good, so the door is already open before it's ever needed.
The Sitter Bank$600
a fund
Six funded nights out for the seasons when leaving the house gets hard, whoever ends up needing the sitting: a newborn, a puppy, an aging parent. The steepest stretches, supplied in advance.
V
Year Five
the unlocking begins
The Letter Box, Unsealed$0
from the wedding
Five years of perspective on what everyone predicted, hoped, and remembered. Paid in full at the reception.
The Fifth-Anniversary Dinner$500
an experience
Paid for at the wedding by someone who loves you. A table already booked five years out, waiting.
The Art & Science of Love$800
a seminar
The Gottmans' weekend workshop for couples: a tune-up at the point most marriages have accumulated their first real wear.
VII
Year Seven
the itch
The Seventh-Year Getaway$750
an experience
A weekend just for the two of you, booked for the anniversary nobody expects to matter. That's exactly why it matters.
The Rainy-Day Sessions$500
a skill
Three counseling sessions banked for whenever they're needed. No questions asked, no excuses available: the rainy day is already paid for.
X
Year Ten
the long middle
The Compounding Gift, Matured$500 → ≈ $1,000
a fund
That wedding-day investment has had a decade to grow, roughly doubling along the way. Spend it together on something day-one money never could have bought.
The Vow-Renewal Trip$1,000
an experience
A trip fund that unlocks at ten years. Say it all again, somewhere new.
XXV
Year Twenty-Five
silver
The Second Album$300
an artifact
The wedding album, re-edited at twenty-five years. The photos that turned out to matter, alongside what no one thought to photograph.
The Silver Fund$1,000 → ≈ $5,400
a fund
A wedding gift left to compound for a quarter century. A honeymoon-sized sum at silver, from a guest who bet on you the whole way.
The Second Letter Box$0
free
Twenty-five years later, the box fills again. This time the letters come from everyone who watched you live it.
The whole registry, fully funded: about $8,500. A quarter of what the average wedding costs, spent on the only part that has to last.
Prices are honest 2026 estimates. The funds are an idea, not financial advice: a guest gives into the couple's own account, the couple invests as they see fit, and the compounding math assumes the market's long-run average. No promises; that's what averages are.
Why This Registry Exists
the thinking behind it
i.
A wedding is a promise made in front of witnesses, on purpose. That's the whole technology of it: vows are easier to keep when a hundred people heard you make them. At most ceremonies, the officiant even asks the room to promise back: will you do everything in your power to uphold this marriage? And the room says we will. Then the room buys a toaster. This registry exists so the witnesses can keep their vow too.
ii.
Anticipation is the most underrated gift. Getting everything at once is how children open presents. The same gifts, spread across a marriage, become something better: a dinner already waiting in five years, a trip quietly ripening at year ten. You don't just receive these gifts. You get to look forward to them for years, which may be the longest-lasting pleasure money can buy. A marriage with funded look-forward-tos in it is simply a different thing to wake up inside.
iii.
You already own the blender. If you're marrying at forty, a registry of stuff feels faintly ridiculous, which is why so many grown-up couples ask for nothing at all. But nothing is a wasted wish. Register for futures instead: they don't need cupboard space, and nobody already has two.
iv.
The honeymoon fund had the right idea. It just stopped too soon. Cash toward a shared experience is the best thing the modern registry ever did. This registry only extends the logic: a honeymoon fund for year five, year ten, year twenty-five. Practical, it turns out, is romantic.
v.
Some years are steeper than others. The seven-year itch has actual statistics behind it, and if a first baby comes, it's harder on a marriage than anyone admits at the shower. Gifts placed in those years aren't pessimism. They're supplies dropped ahead on a route you've announced, in front of everyone, that you intend to walk.
vi.
And guests, let's be honest: this is also insurance. You flew across an ocean for their destination wedding. You wore the outfit. You paid the resort's "celebration rate." You are, whether you like it or not, an investor in this marriage, and this is the only registry that protects your position. Fund the tune-up session. Buy the year-five dinner. Watch your investment mature.
vii.
There is no divorce clause, because nothing here divides. This registry plans the staying, and its gifts are deliberately denominated in together: a table for two at year five, a trip for two at year ten. There is no half of a table for two. Part ways and nobody claws anything back. The gift simply never happens, like a level you didn't reach. That's the design: these vows were made in front of everyone, the unlocks were promised in front of everyone, and somewhere in the fog of year four one of you remembers that year five is already booked. As for the ordinary bad years every long marriage contains, that's not when the registry fails; it's when it works. The tune-up session was bought for exactly that week. (If it truly ends, the letters go home to their writers, unread. And if one of you dies, that isn't failure; everything unlocks at once.)
The wedding industry is worth seventy billion dollars a year. The staying-married industry doesn't exist yet. This registry would like to start it.
Getting married?
We're building this: a registry you can create for your own wedding, or bring to one you'll be toasting at. Leave your email for early access, and you'll be the first to know when it opens.
Noted, with pleasure. You'll hear from us well before your fifth anniversary.