I lived with my now wife for two years before we wed, this surely is very common these days.
We had everything we needed for our home.
We had the dilemma of "what to ask for". We didn't want peoples charity, and yet, the wedding ceremony cost us approx. £5k.
My wife wrote a lovely poem in the invites which very tactfully mentioned that if people wanted to give us a gift, money was great, however their attendance was all we really needed. (It was put a hell of a lot better than that).
We invited 160 to the evening reception and received £700 cash and £450 worth of gift vouchers.