PrincessPerky, I would think (of course I'm often wrong on the etiquette questions) that one could then politely answer, "you don't have to get us anything, but if you want to do something for us anyway, we've set up an account at Cooliemaeville Bank for our house-downpayment. Many people are just contributing to that by going in to the bank instead of buying a gift. We set it up where we won't know the amount of any one person's gift, but everyone will be helping us pursue our dream of home ownership."
I don't normally run w/high society types so I'd probably just say "Dang girl, we don't need a thing. But some folks are giving cash to our downpayment fund."
Aleta, no need to apologize!
