With more and more couples living together before they decide to tie the knot and therefore having furniture, kitchen appliances, towels etc. already, the traditional wedding list can sometimes seem outdated and it is becoming more and more common, and dare we say fashionable, to ask for alternatives. While asking for cash is considered perfectly acceptable in today's society, some still find it a bit straightforward. So what are the other options? There is something that any bride and groom would find hard to refuse: the honeymoon of their dreams!

Shelley and Andrew Green

Andrew Green, from London, with his wife Shelley decided to break with tradition and ask their guests to buy them their dream honeymoon - a road trip across the Deep South of the USA.

He says: "While we were planning our wedding back in 2005, we were also planning an epic, three-week, three-thousand-mile road trip across the Deep South of the USA. We both really wanted our honeymoon to be an once-in-a-lifetime event."

"We also realised that we really didn't need any of the things traditionally found in wedding gift lists. We'd been living together for years, and had cultivated a fine habit of buying each other kitchen implements as Christmas presents. A normal gift list would have been slightly redundant and, frankly, a waste of our guests' money."

NPS Staff, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park

"We'd heard of people asking for money towards their honeymoon but didn't want to ask our friends and family simply to do that. We thought it would be much better if people knew what the money was for. So, we thought we'd ask our guests for specific things we were planning for our honeymoon: theme park tickets, a car upgrade, a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, meals, champagne."

"As I run a web development company, we decided to put together our own list so that everyone could buy us a unique part of our travels on our own website. We set things up so that our guests could reserve items and leave messages for us, or leave a gift suggestion. We asked for the dollar value of gifts in a card on the day, and promised to send photographs of us enjoying each gift on our return."

And as for whether their guests approved... "We were surprised by how much our guests loved it, many of them going well beyond the call of duty in their generosity. We had been concerned that some of our older guests might feel that we were simply asking for cash and consider us rude. We needn't have worried, though: our guests each felt that their gift was the specific experience or activity they'd reserved and not the cash value we'd assigned to it."

"For example, my elder brother had visited NASA when I was 5 and had brought me back a child-sized spacesuit as a souvenir, which he knew I treasured. Our list gave him the opportunity to buy us tickets to the Kennedy Space Center, which he knew would be so much more meaningful to us than merely a set of new towels. What's more, being given dollars didn't really feel like just being given cash (the currency made all the difference), and allowed for a palpable sense of decadence spending it."

Courtesy of MGM Mirage: Mandalay Bay

Noting how successful their idea had been they decided to launch a service for other brides and grooms to be. "Some time after our wedding, we were introduced by a friend to a couple who were getting married in Las Vegas and honeymooning both there and in New York, and having a big reception for family and friends back here in the UK on their return. They really wanted a similar list, and so we started work to allow couples to sign up and manage their own lists on the website. Their list was as popular and successful as ours, and when Shelley went on maternity leave from teaching following the birth of our daughter Zoë last year, I set about trying to finish the site for us to run as a new business."

Wondering how this pair set themselves apart from the competition? "The others' generally operate through affiliations with travel agencies or holiday companies, or by taking commission from gifts made through their customers' lists. Not everyone likes this approach, and some people worry about companies holding the total value of gifts that have been made through a list for lump sum payment at the end. We decided very early on that we wouldn't handle financial transactions for gifts in any way, which would give couples complete flexibility and peace of mind. www.buy-our-honeymoon.com allows couples to easily collect immediate credit card payment for gifts through their own PayPal accounts, or to ask for cheques or the cash value of gifts, as we did."

Michael Quinn, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park

Here are some tips from Andrew Green on how to build a perfect honeymoon gift list:

• 
  Although you certainly can divide the total cost of an all-inclusive package holiday into different items for a list, remember that the honeymoon registry idea works best for independent travel.
• 
  No matter how easy and straightforward the process of building your list, compiling your list items requires imagination and a little work.
• 
  Destinations such as Las Vegas, with such rich and varied attractions and entertainment make things easier, but the secret is to remember that your guests will want to buy you something really special, something to make your honeymoon the most thrilling and memorable it possibly can be.
• 
  So indulge yourself: have that luxurious spa morning, upgrade your rental car, eat in the best restaurants, get those VIP tickets. This is your passport to extending the best day of your life into the best few weeks.

There are three options available to Buy Our Honeymoon customers:

• Bronze: £79 for use of the site and personal support.
• Silver: £129 for a choice of themes and designs and notification cards.
• Gold: £199 for site, support, cards, consultation and a researched and written list.

• And the company is pleased to offer couples mentioning Wedding TV a discount when putting their list on Buy Our Honeymoon. Simply quote WEDDINGTV when registering to receive a 20% discount!

Michael Quinn, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park	Mark Lellouch, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park
Michael Quinn, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park	Courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Mark Lellouch, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park	Michael Quinn, courtesy of Grand Canyon National Park