Zainab & Yemi: a wedding registry that felt like the wedding

Zainab and Yemi were three months out from their Lagos wedding and looking for something that could carry the same intentionality as the rest of their planning. "We didn't want a list that read like a shopping cart," Zainab told us. "We wanted it to feel like us."

A list that looked like the people behind it

They started with the obvious — the everyday kitchen items, the linens, the small things that fill a first apartment. But the registry really opened up when they added the experiences: a tasting menu at their favourite spot, a weekend at the place they had their first proper date, a cooking class with a chef they'd been quietly admiring for a year.

When Zainab shared the link with her bridal party, the response surprised her. Friends pooled together on the bigger items, the cooking class went within an hour, and contributions toward the honeymoon began arriving from people she'd never met — partners of guests, aunts of friends, neighbours she'd only nodded at.

"It looked like our wedding before our wedding had even happened. That mattered."

What the gifters said

A common note from contributors: "It felt like I was picking something that actually mattered to them." That's the whole point. A registry that reads like the couple — not like a default template — gives guests a way to give that feels personal.

By the wedding day, 64 contributors had funded ₦7.98m across 32 items. The honeymoon line item closed out two weeks before the trip itself.