Sebastopol couple creates crowdfunding sites for every event in life

When Janelle Rossi crashed her bike last summer on hilly Pine Flat Road outside Healdsburg, members of a local cycling club rallied to provide their injured friend with 30 gluten-free dinners.

However, the riders of Santa Rosa's NorCal Velo club didn't pop casseroles in the oven. Instead, they donated $790 on Plumfund, a crowdfunding site that a Sebastopol couple created after first starting an alternative bridal registry for honeymooners.

The cyclers' contributions helped pay for seafood risotto, salmon and other delicious meals from Santa Rosa's Riviera Ristorante, Rossi said. Members even picked up the dinners and delivered them to her.

Recovery from the accident has been difficult, she said, but the actions of club members and the wider cycling community have greatly encouraged her.

"They're like my brothers and sisters," Rossi said. "They're wonderful."

The 9-month-old Plumfund is the brainchild of Sara and Josh Margulis. The married couple first created Honeyfund, a bridal registry where wedding guests can pay for parts of a honeymoon rather than for silverware, towels, or an electric mixer. The site was named one of the 50 best websites of 2012 by Time magazine.

Sara Margulis, 39 and an Analy High grad, said guests to her wedding contributed $8,000 to help send Josh and her on their honeymoon to Fiji in 2005.

Her husband, 36, at the time a software and systems engineer, set up a simple honeymoon gift system on their wedding website. It raised enough money that the couple even donated 10 percent of the total to charity.

"It was really surprising how much the guests latched onto the concept," Sara Margulis said.

The couple, who were introduced to each other by mutual friends in San Francisco, launched Honeyfund in 2006. They moved to Sonoma County in 2007.

Crowdfunding allows entrepreneurs, artists and activists to raise funds online for all sorts of goals at sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Razoo.

Now brides and grooms are using similar technology at alternative registries to help pay for honeymoons, including meals, special outings and help with hotels and airfare. Other sites even allow the bridal couple to raise money for a home downpayment or for such non-traditional gifts as purchasing a fire pit or taking horseback riding lessons.

Thirteen percent of brides and grooms registered at alternative sites to help pay for their honeymoons in 2012, according to TheKnot.com, a bridal news and trends site.

"It's steadily growing," said Jamie Miles, an editor at The Knot. In 2008, just 8 percent of bridal couples were using such registries.

Part of the appeal is explained by the makeup of today's brides and grooms. For one thing, they're older. The average age for brides is 29 years old. For grooms, it's 31.

Moreover, 74 percent of couples live together before marriage, according to the The Knot's Real Weddings Study. As such, most couples already have established a home with everything they need, said Sara Margulis.

"Maybe two of everything," added Josh Margulis.

Even so, some think the alternative bridal registries are in poor taste, akin to asking guests directly for cash.

"It has been a big etiquette question," said Sara Margulis.

Wedding planner Denise Kramer of Petaluma said she isn't familiar with Honeyfund, but brides occasionally do query her about asking for cash. She encourages them instead to stick with traditional gift registries.