Great, cheap or free wedding registry site?
January 12, 2012 9:13 AM Subscribe
Is there a very good, full-featured wedding gift registry site (allows you to add items from any website, allows people to buy a portion of a gift, allows cash gifts, etc.) that's free? No? How about cheap? Thanks!
You may be interested in WeddingRepublic. It's for gifts of cash, where you choose what you'd like (house downpayment, ipad, honeymoon...) and guests choose to purchase all or a portion of your requests. Quite clever, actually.
posted by unlapsing at 9:44 AM on January 12, 2012
posted by unlapsing at 9:44 AM on January 12, 2012
I personally balk at the idea of giving money to newlyweds, unless it's for a honeymoon or a house down payment, and even then, I think I'm a bit old fashioned.
If you feel like 1) people want to buy you things but can't attend your wedding, or 2) you don't think you have enough range in prices of items on your registry for your guests, you can register at a major nation-wide chain that has a good return policy, and add more items to your registry than you actually want. Then you can return the items you don't want and buy something else, or you might be able to get cash back.
If this feels awkward, I'll provide an example from my wedding: my wife and I went into a household goods chain store with the registry scanner gun, and we doubled up on a few items. I added two different juicers, and actually got both, and I returned one of them. We got something more mundane that we forgot to add to the list (who wants to buy you paper towels and coffee filters?), and if the people ever asked us about the returned juicer, we can say we couldn't decide which we wanted, thinking we'd only get one, but we got both and returned one. But no one ever asked us about the gifts they gave us, unless they were family heirloom-type items.
Otherwise, the Amazon wishlist/registry is great, if you're OK with Amazon. You can mark the priority of items on your list, include items from any other site, potentially including gift cards of undetermined values to other stores. Add a few of those, and people can give you store credit, for as much as they feel comfortable giving you. And it's all in once place, which people can find by entering your names.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:59 AM on January 12, 2012
If you feel like 1) people want to buy you things but can't attend your wedding, or 2) you don't think you have enough range in prices of items on your registry for your guests, you can register at a major nation-wide chain that has a good return policy, and add more items to your registry than you actually want. Then you can return the items you don't want and buy something else, or you might be able to get cash back.
If this feels awkward, I'll provide an example from my wedding: my wife and I went into a household goods chain store with the registry scanner gun, and we doubled up on a few items. I added two different juicers, and actually got both, and I returned one of them. We got something more mundane that we forgot to add to the list (who wants to buy you paper towels and coffee filters?), and if the people ever asked us about the returned juicer, we can say we couldn't decide which we wanted, thinking we'd only get one, but we got both and returned one. But no one ever asked us about the gifts they gave us, unless they were family heirloom-type items.
Otherwise, the Amazon wishlist/registry is great, if you're OK with Amazon. You can mark the priority of items on your list, include items from any other site, potentially including gift cards of undetermined values to other stores. Add a few of those, and people can give you store credit, for as much as they feel comfortable giving you. And it's all in once place, which people can find by entering your names.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:59 AM on January 12, 2012
When it comes to cash gifts, I don't think there's any site that will let someone use the site to make a monetary gift that isn't going to take a cut, although I think people understand that and will just give check/cash directly to you. So you might consider using a site that meets all your other specifications knowing that most people will choose to avoid cash gifts through a website. You might like MyRegistry.com.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:19 AM on January 12, 2012
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:19 AM on January 12, 2012
Seconding MyRegistry.com, though it doesn't make cash gifts as tasteful as Honeyfund.com. Otherwise it's free, has a decent app, and you can register for stuff from various websites as well as offline stuff.
posted by zoomorphic at 10:37 AM on January 12, 2012
posted by zoomorphic at 10:37 AM on January 12, 2012
I was going to say MyRegistry.com too. I tried it out for non-money gifts, but decided not to use it in the end because the user experience for the person buying the gift was, IMO, pretty terrible. There were pop-ups and installations and I couldn't see my elderly relatives coping with that. I didn't try the donation/money gift option but I do remember it was via PayPal so you need to have a PayPal account to receive the money. Also - I could be wrong - but I don't remember seeing the option to manage your cash gifts on the app? (The app was, again, IMO, not that great.)
posted by t0astie at 1:40 PM on January 12, 2012
posted by t0astie at 1:40 PM on January 12, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
I've not seen a registry that lets someone send cash gifts - that's kind of not what a traditional registry does.
posted by Lulu's Pink Converse at 9:25 AM on January 12, 2012 [1 favorite]