I have heard of a British warehouse, that would keep track of your wedding registry for you: Aunt X has bought Y. Then you could send a thankyou note to Aunt X for Y, but never ever collect Y. Instead, you would get store credit for that amount.
At our own wedding, we had a courthouse ceremony with about 20 guests, at the Brussels Central Market Square (Brussels Grand Place - search it, it's lovely!), then a picknick at the petting zoo next to our apartment building. Dinner was cooked by two African ladies husband knows. We told the guests not to bring gifts, because we were planning on having the religious ceremony later in my hometown. However, I gave birth the day after our wedding, we moved apartments, money was tight, and the church wedding never happened. There was a religious ceremony and party in husband's African country, for which we had sent some money; did you know that for a muslim wedding, neither partner needs to be present? :)