A BRIDAL REGISTRY YOU CAN BANK ON.

Byline: Patricia Leigh Brown The New York Times

Move over, Miss Manners. The Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has a tip for brides- and grooms-to-be: Forgo the flatware.

HUD - perhaps the country's unlikeliest dispenser of wedding advice - has announced a bridal registry initiative for newlyweds intended to encourage young couples to save money for their dream homes. The new program allows people who are getting married to open an interest-bearing savings account at one of 30 Federal Housing Administration-approved lenders around the country.

The idea is that family and friends, anonymously or not, can contribute toward a down payment. ``A couple can sign up and let guests know, `I'm registered at Macy's, Bloomie's and Columbia Savings,' '' said Aylin Gonen, a HUD spokeswoman in Washington.

Gonen said the new program, called the Bridal Registry Initiative, was intended to raise the home ownership rate among young families. The rate for households under age 35 is 58.8 percent, in contrast to the national average of 65.4 percent.

``Traditionally, a bridal registry has been a guide to what couples want or need, whether it's flatware or a down payment,'' said Millie Bratten, the editor in chief of Bride's magazine. Love aside, she said, weddings are financial rituals. ``A wedding,'' she unromantically observed, ``is the only time you collect.''

Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, who still remembers receiving four avocado-colored blenders when he got married, said the biggest hurdle to home ownership among many young families was not the mortgage payments but the closing costs and down payment. If getting married represents the first dream for many young people, he said, ``We thought, `Why not set up a mechanism where friends and family could contribute to the next dream?' ''

In the new HUD program, qualified couples may choose to register for a down payment at an approved bank instead of for a cappuccino maker at a department store. To expedite the idea, Cisneros said, the rules were changed: Traditionally, borrowers have had to show that money for a down payment was self-amassed. Now, gifts from family members and others are allowed.

Above all, the program seems to be an attempt to come up with a socially acceptable way to ask for money.

To the etiquette doyenne Letitia Baldrige, however, such solicitations, even government-sanctioned ones, are inherently tacky. ``I'm all for young people saving for a home,'' she said, ``but open solicitations, like the Salvation Army, are an appalling trend.''