Elya & Jacob

We had a science themed wedding. Yes, you read that correctly, a science themed wedding... we are nerds.

My husband and I are both lovers of science and scientists in our own right. He graduated with a degree in Physics and is now a high school science teacher, I majored in Biology and now work for a non profit health clinic.

My dream for our wedding was to incorporate our love for science with my girlhood dreams of a flowery, princess wedding. I was determined to customise everything for our wedding, from the homemade cake toppers depicting my husband as a Houston Texans Fan, to our periodic table seating plan, down to our registry.

I realized early on that for a couple with eclectic tastes we wouldn’t be able to use the registry services at Macy’s or Target; they probably wouldn’t carry the periodic table cutting board we wanted or the “I Love Beards/I Have a Beard” pillow cases that are now adorning our bed.

Like everything else involved in our wedding I took to the internet in search of a unique way to register for gifts, I came across a few sites but when I found SimpleRegistry I knew I had hit the jackpot. I quickly created an account using the picture my sister had drawn of my husband and I wearing lab coats.

The first time I explained to my husband how the registry worked he was confused and to be honest, a little skeptical, until I showed him that I had created an option for our guests to help him pay for his graduate school applications. Where else could we registry for that? He was sold.

Our registry grew from there, we added the cutting board and the pillow cases. We included some basic household items that we needed such as quality cookware, knives, hampers, and a standing mirror.

SimpleRegistry made is possible to add more expensive purchases including a Dyson vacuum and an electric wok, the prices were broken down so that each guest only need pay a portion. Our families are far from wealthy and lowering the price of a vacuum from $500 to $50 made a dramatic difference.

We also added our favorite tabletop and card games, a Harry Potter themed throw, and a handcarved wine rack, another Etsy find. One of my favorite options was customizing the listing. For instance, the caption for the vacuum was: This is really more for our cats than anything (and for our fur-sensitive friends) we want you to visit our house without needing to take our lint roller with you when you leave.

We received so much positive feedback from our friends and families about our registry. At first we were concerned that some of our older guests would not fully understand how to use an online registry, but we had no complaints. I was downright giddy when I first heard a ding on my phone indicating that someone had contributed to our registry. Those dings were literally music to my ears.

Meanwhile, our wedding was perfect and everything turned out exactly the way we wanted with custom touches throughout. We performed a chemical reaction as our unity ceremony and even exited the ceremony to the theme from Star Wars. We also exchanged rings made of Koa wood and we received all the gifts that we needed for our new life together.