Wedding gift list - what are you doing?

essex_bride  We have set a gift list up at Next as both Mark and I love a lot of their home bits

kelz15912  @essex_bride I love home stuff but have everything i need at the min, butmy kitchen colour changes so often. I want to go to Hawaii and looking at the cost is very very expensive but will never have the opportunity to go again. I just feel horrible dictating what i want.

essex_bride  @kelz15912 I love the home stuff too, were lucky that we are looking to move into a bigger place once we are married so will be preparing for that with the bits we have put on the list, new bits for a new home etc. As for your holiday vouchers, If I was to be honest hun I wouldn't worry too much about it. The last three weddings that Mark and I have been too in the past two years they all asked for holiday vouchers as a contribution towards their honeymoon. They all included a little note in with the invitations that they already had their home set up so a conventional gift list was not really viable and that they really wanted to go away after the wedding and where they wanted to go and that if guests did really want to give them a gift in celebration of their wedding a contribution of holiday vouchers with such a such company would be greatly appreciated. No one I know of found it offensive at all and they all got a significant amount to put towards their honeymoons.I think with the cost of weddings now days its becoming more and more popular to do as more often than not couples dont have the money for both as they arfe spending so much on the big day,and its also great if like yourself you already have you home set up

kelz15912  @essex_bride That what i thought, my cousin asked for cash with a little poem and she got quite a bit. I would prefer the vouchers as tbh i am sometimes a little bad with money, This way i can just put it straight on the honeymoon. Next things is do i book it now and maybe not have enough or do i wait and see what i can save on top of the wedding and with the gifts vouchers??

essex_bride  @kelz15912 I guess it depends whether of not you are wanting to go away directly after your wedding. Two of my friends did it in the way that they found out the amount of vouchers which guests gave them and then booked after, they actually got a really good last minute deal so that may be worth taking into consideration.. Also if you book now and you dont get the amount you may hope for can you financially afford to cover the cost with paying for a wedding too x

bubs789  @kelz15912 Were asking for donations to 'Make A Wish' foundation, we have everything we need so thought we would help someone else

kelz15912  @essex_bride Yeah i think i might leave it and see afterwards, i defo won't be going straighht away as i am having at least a week off for the wedding i am going to do this 2 or 3 weeks later. xx


@bubs789 thats a good idea. x

sammykins  @kelz15912 we've put a money poem on our website and invitation and called it "gift suggestion". therefore nobody will (hopefully) feel that we're begging for stuff. lol.

it totally worked, cos H2b's dad rang us to ask if we wanted our wedding present now, so we said yes please and he sent us a cheque which was enough to cover our honeymoon in Mexico! anything else we get off other guests will be a bonus x

kelz15912  @sammykins Thanks hun, lucky you. Wish my dad would do that. lost of spending money then xxx

mrsegan2b  @kelz15912 Hello, one of my ex-colleagues went through a company to get donations online for their honeymoon. It lists who has donated for your thank you cards and money can be paid before the wedding or up until a closing date set by you. You can then choose your honeymoon after. Can't for the life of me remember what the site is though, speak to a tour operator such as Thomas Cook who may be able to help x

kelz15912  @mrsegan2b Cheers hun xx

scrapbook_bride  Easy! I set us up on http://www.buy-our-honeymoon.com/ and it's superb. My fiance and I are off to America for our honeymoon.
I found that guests respond so much better to buying you an event or activity on line than sending cash or cheques.
You set up a page, personalise it with their templates (I chose a vintage road trip background) add a load of activities like 'dinner for two $50' or 'one night in a motel $40'. You make them up and load up whatever digital images you like. You can post the link up on your social networking site, email it out. They automatically send you 50 little cards (gorgeous and also matching your theme) to put in your wedding invites.
I linked it instantly to my Paypal account and the donations are flooding in! it even lets you name your page as buy our honeymoon/yournames or our-dream-wedding/yournames. The beauty is, it's just cash, you don't actually have to do exactly what they 'buy' you. Just let the paypal account fill up.
My top tip? don't underestimate their generosity! I posted up a wish list item of 2 tickets for Harry Potter Land in Orlando for £170, and a mate bought them for me. My mother-in-law-to-be also went on and paid for our actual flights! - because it was so easy.
Highly recommend.

kelz15912  @scrapbook_bride Thanks you ever so much hun this is a big help and i will set it up now. xx

stella4ben  @bubs789 we are asking for donations too. One to Breast Cancer Care as MIL had breast cancer and the other is our local animal shelter who look after all our dogs when we go away and they are fantastic. x

cicmatag  @scrapbook_bride this is a brilliant idea, this is exactly what we need. We've got all our furniture, cutlery etc. so we don't want a traditional wedding list (although we might set up a small one for "traditionalist" nans and aunties...). If people can see what they're buying us they are more likely to contribute, and they can all get a thank you note with a photo of the activity, accommodation etc. they've bought us

jodie  Hi. We are asking for holiday vouchers too. we've booked our honeymoon through Thomas cook (as they are all over the country) and what they do is refund the card with the vouchers as obviously we won't get them till the wedding day and the honeymoon has to be paid 3 months before we go. No-one seems to find it rude that we've asked for them as its no different for asking for other presents or sending a gift list out.
We just put on our invites 'if you would like to buy us a gift we'd appreciate Thomas cook vouchers'.
Good luck with it all, can't wait for the honeymoon now!!! xxx

kelz15912  @scrapbook_bride hi hun did it ask you for a one off payment. xx

catwoman8  We were going to use one of those web site where you ask for people to 'buy' you parts of your honeymoon but all the ones we looked at took a percentage of your overall amount received and this could end up been quite a big chunk of money if you have lots of generous friends and family. In the end we put the following poem in our invites - 'We really hope that you can join us on our special day, you'll make our memories complete in every single way. We do not have a gift list and we know you'll understand, our house and contents are complete with pots and plates and pans. But should you really want to give to the happy bride and groom, then a gift of money would be lovely for a special honeymoon!' Good luck !! xx

scrapbook_bride  Mine was a one-off payment of £55 on http://www.buy-our-honeymoon.com/
We made that back in our first gift anyway - well worth it!

kelz15912  @catwoman8 Love that poem xxxx


@scrapbook_bride cheers hun and they don't tak anything after that.

clareandjason2012  im moving into H2B's flat before our wedding and we had alot of things bought for the flat and vouchers for our engagement, so we will have what we need homewise, weve talked about this and were going to set up a gift list for those of our guests that want to ge us something but also going to ask for donations towards our honeymoon, loving the donation sites idea that all the other ladies have said they have so will be having a look at that as well so people have a choice xx

boycee  @sam_edwards85 was also wondering what everyone was doing for this:
Hey Girls,

what are you doing for a gift lift? Jay and I have lived together for 7 years so have everything we need for our home, we where thinking of asking for holiday vouchers but with the current climate what happens if the company goes bust would we lose out? Im not sure if asking for money instead of vouchers is rude? what are you all doing?

x
Yesterday at 12:44

cicmatag @sam_edwards85 have you thought of using websites like http://www.buy-our-honeymoon.com/ ?
Basically you can set up your own honeymoon wish list, with flights, experiences, hotel rooms, meals, transfers etc. but it can also include "normal" gift list items like towels, cutlery etc. I think we'll include a good DSLR camera as well.
People click on the item they want to give you and pay the money into your Paypal account or give you the cash on the day and then you can spend the money on whatever you want.
This way people actually buy you a gift, not just give you money so they will have the feeling of giving you something useful - not that money isn't useful haha.
I think there's a flat fee of £50 or so, they don't take commission.
This is what we're planning to do as we've lived together for over 3 years and like you we have everything we need for the flat (apart from the flat itself lol) and we wouldn't be able to afford a good honeymoon otherwise.
Yesterday at 12:54

sam_edwards85 Thanks hun will have look x
Yesterday at 12:56

gina130284 Hiya hun, we're the same. By the time we get married we will have lived together in our own house for almost 4 years, and have done everything that needed doing. So the last thing we need is a kettle, toaster or glasses etc.

We've created a website on 'gettingmarried.co.uk' and there is a gift list page that people can look at but we've just put a poem on requesting money. We thought about Thomas Cook vouchers as were getting married abroad and all booked through Thomas Cook. However it all has to be paid off 4 months before the wedding so no point in asking for those.

Friends of ours did a 'buy our honeymoon website as @cicmatag said above and I presume it worked well. However Im not sure whether you receive an itemised list of who gifted money and how much. Id want to know who did this so I could thank them properly. We never received a thank you card from them (strangley) so no idea if they know who paid towards their honeymoon.
Yesterday at 14:43

alison79 im putting in money poems with the invitations!
Yesterday at 19:12

mysterymeg My parents dissaprove of vouchers etc so we have done a normal list for our day guests but when evening guests have asked what we want we've said Euros for our honeymoon x
Yesterday at 21:14

goldentramp @sam_edwards85 We did ours on amazon and put things like the Men Behaving Badly boxset on there and a sodastream - things we would want but would never buy ourselves! x
Yesterday at 21:36

nextmrstaylor @goldentramp thats a good idea xx
Yesterday at 22:08

becky260512  We are using debenhams because we don't live together yet, but they also do honeymoon vouchers through virgin, might be the best of both?

rosslyn80  we are asking 4 donations towards our honeymoon. we put a poem in the invitations asking ppl xx

loves_to_dance  One thing to be aware of on sites like www.buy-our-honeymoon.com is that if it is linked to a paypal account then paypal will charge your guests commission on each payment, I think about 3.4%.

goldentramp  Amazon - free and you can list so many different items. Plus you can print a list of addresses to send thank yous to.

gina130284  @kelz15912 I dont think its cheeky to ask for vouchers. We're not doing a gift list because by the wedding we will have been in our house 4 years so dont need anything really. We were going to ask for money if people asked what we wanted and it will help us pay off the wedding.

kelz15912  @gina130284 we have decided against the vouchers as the travel agent gets commission on them. We are now just doing a simple money poem. My step asked what I needed for the wedding and when I told her we wanted cash for out honeymoon she was so understanding. I thought she would have disagreed. C

mrswilsonme  @kelz15912 we are not having a gift list, instead are asking for donations to be made towards a charity special to both H2B and I. Mine is a cancer care unit where my gran was treated and H2B's is Trees for Life His best friend died in a car crash and there is a garden planted in his memory in Glenaffric, near Inverness. There was too much to choose from with gift lists, we don't like asking for money (each to their own thought x) and to be honest we've got enough of our crap without getting gifts !! xx