Honeymoon gift lists: Deposit a Gift

Ah, the eternal question of a gift list. When we were planning our wedding, the two of us felt very awkward at the thought of asking people to buy us things, especially already having lived together for five years. But eventually, the idea that people actually WANTED to buy us presents (shocking, right?), and that actually, it would be nice to replace those plates we’d bought because they were Ikea’s cheapest, won out. But if you have already got nice plates and decent pans, or you haven’t and don’t really care, then you might be looking for different options – or perhaps you really want a luxury honeymoon but can’t really afford it yourselves. In both instances, a honeymoon gift list can be a fantastic idea.

Deposit a Gift is an excellent, flexible site that allows you to set up exactly the kind of gift list you want – so if you would like contributions to your honeymoon but still fancy a new toaster, or if you want people to have the choice between honeymoon and charity donations, then you can do. Equally, if you just want to focus on one thing, you can. It’s been set up to function pretty much in the same way as an online department store registry does – so guests choose from your list of possible gifts (e.g. an elephant ride, upgraded hotel rooms, champagne dinner…) and then pay immediately for them by credit card. You can then choose when and how to receive the money – as a free direct deposit into your account, a personal cheque or Visa gift card. Easy. Guests also have the option of a printable gift certificate, which is great for people who want to be able to give you something on the day.

Another great feature of Deposit a Gift is that you can combine a wedding website – with details on your venue, where to stay, travel information etc – with your honeymoon list, providing one simple link to all of the information relating to your wedding, and avoiding the awkwardness of feeling like you’re asking people outright for gifts. For me, this is one of the best features about Deposit a Gift, especially for less tech-savvy guests who may get a little perplexed by having more than one site to look at.

Though the money that people give is linked to specific gifts, the responsibility for actually buying the gifts (ie paying for an upgrade/balloon ride/scuba dive with that money) lies with you – so if you get to your destination and find something else you really want to do, then you have the flexibility to do so. Likewise, if there’s something expensive that you would like guests to contribute to – say the cost of your flights – you can split the cost up into more manageable parts, so that guests can then choose to contribute to as much or as little of it as they like.

You can also use the site to post your honeymoon pictures once you return – great for showing people what their money went towards. One other notable thing is that you can choose who pays the website service fee (7.5% of the total balance) – either yourselves, at the time of receiving the money your guests have given you, or your guests, when paying for your gift; the default setting is for your guests, with the thinking that most people would want to cover this rather than burden you with it, but if you’re uncomfortable with this then you can choose to pay it.

I had a little play around with the site and was really pleased by how easy it is to set up a list – everything is explained clearly, either as you go along, or in the extensive FAQs – and how customisable it is in terms of how you want your website to look. You can either set up the list entirely from scratch, or you can use the “rapid registry” function which lets you choose from a number of specific destinations and allocate things quickly and easily from there to your own list, adapting and adding things as you require. This is a really handy function, especially if you’ve already got hundreds of other things taking up your time in the run up to the wedding.

For other honeymoon gift list options, see the posts here and here.

All images courtesy of Deposit a Gift