Wedding Gift List Etiquette

Article written by Nearly Married

Again, many thanks to Nearly Married for providing Your UK Wedding Directory with another great article. This article explores all the possibilities that comes with providing your wedding guests with a gift list.

Gift list etiquette can be confusing and conflicting - partly because wedding gift lists are a relatively new phenomenon. Nearly Married Ltd., the wedding gift list provider, answers some of the most frequently asked questions about wedding gift list etiquette.

We're not sure about having a gift list because we don't want our guests to feel obliged to buy us a gift. What should we do?

Guests understand when couples get married it's because they love each other - not because they're looking for wedding gifts! If you decide to have a gift list you can choose your wording carefully to ensure that your guests don't feel obliged to buy a gift. For example, a popular phrase to use is "It's your presence, not your present, that we want!"

Even if you don't want your guests to buy gifts for you, you'll find that most people still want to give a gift as they feel it's the right thing to do - and they want to mark the occasion with a gift. Without a gift list to guide your guests you could find yourselves inundated with gifts which you don't really want. If you really don't want any gifts for yourselves, why not consider charity gifts? Or you could ask for tree gifts which will grow and mature (just like your marriage!) as well as offsetting carbon emissions.

Should we send details of our gift list with our wedding invitations?

When couples started using gift lists it was not accepted etiquette to include details of a gift list with a wedding invitation. However, as gift lists have become increasingly popular, times have changed and so has the etiquette. It has become much more the norm - and it's simpler - to let guests know where a gift list has been set up and saves guests trying to contact the bridal party to find out. It's highly unlikely that guests will take offence. Most gift list companies can provide you with invitation inserts which you can send to guests.

If you don't feel comfortable including your gift list information with invitations and you've got a wedding website, this is a great - and discrete - way for guests to get the all-important details about your wedding and your gift list. All couples who register with Nearly Married get a free wedding website which they can add lots of info and pictures to and their gift list is automatically integrated into their wedding website.

Should our evening guests be given details of our gift list?

If you don't expect your evening guests to give you a gift, don't include information about your gift list with their invitations. If you've got a wedding website this is a great way for them to find out if you have a gift list, without having to ask.

Is it OK to ask for money for general use or our honeymoon?

Many couples already have the traditional household items which were often given as gifts such as toasters, kettles, towels and bedding. That's why couples often feel that it would suit them better to ask for money which they can use towards something special, such as their honeymoon. If you're saving towards a deposit on a house, furniture or a new kitchen and would appreciate money towards that why not ask for contributions on your gift list? It is becoming far more the norm for couples to ask for money - but our advice is to let guests know what the money will be spent on so that your guests feel that they've contributed towards a specific item rather than giving money which could be spent on household bills or your entertainment expenses! The Nearly Married gift list service lets you customise gifts of money with your own gift name, description, price and picture so you can ask for anything you want!

We don't need household items and we're asking for other types of gifts on our gift list - how should we explain this to guests?

Many couples enclose an information sheet when they send out their invitations. The information sheet could have all sorts of important information such as directions, transport and accommodations options and information about the gift list. You might be able to add this info to your gift list if your provider offers this option. If you've got a wedding website this is another great place to add this info.

Suggested Gift List Wording
If you want to explain to your guests that they don't have to buy you a gift, or if you want to tell them a bit about your gift list here are some suggestions:

• Please don't feel obliged to give us a gift - all we really want is to have a lovely wedding which we can share with our friends and family.
• Your presence is more important than a present!
• You probably know that we usually like to do things differently - so it might not be a surprise to you that our gift list is a little bit different too!
• As we already have a lot of household items, we hope you won't mind us asking for money instead of traditional wedding gifts. We're planning to spend the money on...
• To celebrate our wedding we're going on a once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon which will give us memories we'll always remember. Our honeymoon gift list shows some of the trips we've got planned so you can see how we plan to use your kind wedding gift.
• We've decided to set up a charity gift list. If you would like to give a gift, this is a perfect way for our wedding to help others less fortunate than us.

More information about gift lists and wedding planning is available at www.nearlymarried.co.uk where you can also download a Free Wedding Handbook.

You can also visit the Your UK Wedding Directory to find out more about Wedding Gift Lists

Wedding Websites - The Ultimate Accessory!

Article written by Nearly Married.

Wedding websites are becoming the ultimate wedding accessory because they're a great way to share the details of the big day. Couples don't have to be technical gurus to set up a website and - best of all - they can be available for free!

A basic wedding website will normally include the all-important details such as the names of the couple, their wedding date, time and place as well and other helpful information for guests such as directions, transport, accommodation options and maps.

But most couples like to personalise their websites and often include photos of themselves and perhaps members of the bridal party, photos of the venue, honeymoon info, stories about how they met (which could be two different versions!), hen and stag night information and details of any extra social events before or after the big day. Couples will also sometimes provide links to online photo albums so that their guests can look at the wedding or honeymoon photos.

Another popular use of wedding websites is to ask guests for extra things such as photos or stories which could be used in speeches, any special requests for the DJ - or anything else which might not be mentioned in a formal wedding invitation.

And wedding websites are a great place to include information about the gift list - particularly if couples don't feel comfortable about sending gift list information with their wedding invitations. Telling guests about a wedding website is a discrete way of pointing them to a source of information about the wedding without actually giving them the information directly. It's also a great place to give guests some background info about the gift list, especially if the couples are looking for money (towards something special or the honeymoon) or if they want to stress to guests that they don't need to buy a wedding gift.

For couples wanting to set up a wedding website they can build it themselves from scratch, pay a wedding website designer or buy a wedding website online.

Nearly Married is a popular wedding gift list service which provides a free wedding website to all couples who register, free of charge, at http://www.nearlymarried.co.uk/ The couple's wedding website is automatically created as soon as they register and they can start adding details straight away. The pre-formatted templates make it easy to add info and pictures with up to 10 pages - all with pictures - available free of charge. There are also password protection options to keep all, or some, important details private. A direct URL to the couples wedding website is also available. So couples don't need to worry about registering a domain name, building a website from scratch, hosting or backing up information as it's all done for them.

Wedding planning tools are also provided free of charge by Nearly Married. For example, there's a handy guest list tool which enables couples to maintain their guest list online and update each guest's record once they've replied to their invitation. And there's a convenient 'Thank You' card management tool for logging which cards have been sent.

By combining a wedding website with a gift list service it's easy for guests to find everything they need in one place.

This article was kindly written for us by Nearly Married.

You can also visit the Your UK Wedding Directory to find out more about Wedding Gift Lists

Gift List Services - a comparison of features and drawbacks

Gift Lists are a very important part of preparing for the wedding, especially if you have a lot of guests to invite. Here is a great article written by Gift List Company The Bottom Drawer on deciding who to choose!

When deciding on which Gift List company to use, there are some important factors you should take into consideration.

Is the gift list service a money contribution type or an actual purchase type?

What's the difference? Well, the traditional department stores that you see on the busy city High Streets are the "actual purchase" type. In otherwords, when you add an item to your list and one of your guests' buys that item, that item has indeed been physically bought and neither you nor your guest can change your mind about it. With the specialist gift list services like The Bottom Drawer, the list is a "money contribution" type which means your guests make a contribution towards your selected gifts but the gifts aren't actually bought until after your list closes. This gives you the flexibility to change your mind. This is worth bearing in mind because if you have your list at a department store you may well end up with odd dinner plates or glasses from a larger set which you then either stick away unused in a cupboard because you don't have the full set, or you end up having to pay out yourself to complete the set. If you use a more flexible gift list service for those items you can decide when your list closes whether to buy the complete set or use the money received to buy alternative items you can afford instead.


Am I limited to the items that store sells?

With the traditional lists at department stores in the cities and towns, yes you are limited to just the items they sell. You might think this isn't a problem as they offer so many items after all. But, remember it also means you are limited to the price they charge for those items - which could be a very expensive mistake to make. At flexible gift list companies such as The Bottom Drawer you are able to add any item, from any store to your list. The gift list company simply collects your guests contributions for you which you are then able to spend at any store you wish. To show how much difference this could make, here's an example with data taken on the 15 February 2007 from John Lewis, an independent store and The Bottom Drawer. Say you really wanted your guests to contribute towards a new LCD TV. At John Lewis you would have had a reasonable choice though at the independent store if you wanted one over 20" you would have had a choice of just 1, the Panasonic TX23LXD60. At The Bottom Drawer you could choose from every TV available on the market. But let's stick with the Panasonic to give a fair comparison. At the independent store the price was £795 for this TV, if you had your list at John Lewis and selected this TV you would have had to pay £745. However, if you held your list at The Bottom Drawer you could choose from the best price available, which a Kelkoo search showed to be £494! So going with an independent store or other city High Street Store could mean you pay more than £250 over the odds! It is only at the specialist gift list companies where you can really have a unique gift list. For example, how about a garden makeover paid for by your guests? At The Bottom Drawer this becomes a reality as they can arrange for a local landscaper to produce a quote for you which then forms the basis for your gift list so each square metre of patio can be one gift, each plant another gift and so on! They can also arrange similar services for a new kitchen or bathroom or your dream honeymoon! Other unusual gifts couples have recently obtained through The Bottom Drawer include a hottub, a piano and a horse box trailer!

What if I want gifts from more than one store?

Traditionally, you may want some lower priced gifts from Argos to go with some more exclusive gifts from John Lewis. In the past you would need to set-up two separate gift lists at two separate stores and send out two lots of invitations. With a flexible gift list provider you can have all your gift items on one list (and yes you can often even add items from John Lewis, Next, Argos and the other traditional department stores!)

What about the charges?

With the traditional department stores it is usually free to set-up your list and in fact they may offer incentives to draw you in such as vouchers to spend in their store. But remember you are limited to the items that store sells, at the price that store charges which could be quite expensive (see point 2 above)!


You should also check delivery charges as whist some will be free, others will charge a separate, small delivery charge to each guest which can add up to quite a significant amount of wasted money.

Pay for your honeymoon using your wedding gift list

With the alternative flexible gift lists the charges are normally split in two ways: charges to you to set up and use the list and charges that are levied against the value of the gifts your guests make to you. You need to compare carefully to know the full charges you will be paying. Many of the services that offer a free facility to set-up the list then go on to charge 9% or more on to the orders from your guests. Not only can this add up to an awful lot of money but your guests won't be too happy either! Some services such as The Bottom Drawer are set-up in such a way that potentially there is no cost for you the couple to use the service AND no cost for your guests to make contributions as they earn income by selling items direct to you or from commission received from the companies they work with to provide gifts. You should also check that all payment options are supported for your guests so that those that prefer not to pay by credit or debit card have the option to pay by cheque and over the phone too. One final thing to bear in mind is that the money collected may be used to purchase gifts from stores other than the flexible gift list company - so you should check what the delivery charges will be from the store(s) you will eventually be buying your gifts from.

Security

Naturally when several thousand pounds is potentially being collected via your gift list you need to feel certain that your money will be safe in the hands of the gift list company. No matter what the size of the company they can never totally guarantee to be around forever - witness some household names (not wedding related!) that have disappeared over the years. But there are ways you can limit the risk. For one, any transactions that your guests make using a credit or debit card must be handled over a secure server using encrypted technology. This is fairly standard these days. Also, fairly good protection is offered when your guests use a credit card or Visa debit card as the card companies can often be obliged to refund any money if a company gets into difficulty and can't fulfil on its promises. But this doesn't apply to other debit cards or cheques. A good thing to do is check the small print for the company you are dealing with - do they openly tell you about the directors of the company? If it is a limited company it is much easier to track down who is behind the company in case something goes wrong - if you are dealing with a small internet company it could be very difficult for you to get any comeback if the company goes bust. Finally, consider how secure your own information is - what if someone hacked into a site, pretended to be you by obtaining your details, and asked for your gift list funds to be transferred to THEIR bank account! Only one gift list company in the UK is certified by Hackersafe, the worlds leading compliance company (who also monitor Microsoft sites) - and that's The Bottom Drawer. Their site is tested daily to make sure it is secure against all known hacker tricks.

Conclusion

So our advice is to think twice before going with the traditional department store - there is much more choice to be had elsewhere. And if you opt for a flexible gift list service then always check the (sometimes very) small print to know what ALL the charges - both to you AND your guests - will be. Finally, consider how secure your gift list funds will be with that company. Only The Bottom Drawer offers Hackersafe protection.
The Bottom Drawer © 2008


You can also visit the Your UK Wedding Directory to find out more about Wedding Gift Lists

Top Tips For Finding The Perfect Wedding Band

Find that band that will fit into your wedding plans!

The following article was written by the band 'Hard To Handle'!

On average it's estimated that if you're planning a wedding this year, you can expect to spend approximately 250 hours bringing this most special and important day to fruition. How much time will YOU spend finding the perfect wedding band? HARD TO HANDLE band are one of the busiest wedding bands working in the UK today. Try following our five top tips for finding the perfect wedding band!

Shop around

Take a good look at the type of band you may be interested in booking. It's best to prepare questions to ask in advance. Are you sure that the eight piece band you have found will be suitable for the wedding reception venue you have booked? Do they play UK wide or are they based in one particular area? Will they provide you with a contract to safeguard your rights?

Be sure the band is suitable for your function

Not all bands are suitable to perform at wedding receptions. The band you see playing at your local bar may sound great, but will they be able to perform the type of music suitable for a wedding reception? Bar and pub bands play loud music often in one genre. That might be great for a little while, but bands that specialise in playing wedding receptions know that the key to success is a broad repertoire, from classic hits to modern music.

Be sure that the band is suitable for your venue

The venue you hire for your wedding reception will probably have certain requirements of the band you book. Many venues have installed sound limiters designed govern how loud a band can play. This means that if a band plays over a certain level of sound, electrical power will be cut. The result? No music! Ask the band you are interested in booking if they have experience working with sound limiters.

Beware of hidden charges

As with all the services you book for your wedding reception, you need to be sure that you are getting the best value for money. When you ask a band for their price, ask them if this is their final quote. Some bands will attempt to add extras fees to their quote at a later date - fees for accommodation, food, even hire of equipment.

Part-time vs. Professional

You wouldn't entrust the repair of your car to a part time mechanic, or a call plumber who has a day job working in an office, so why consider booking a band that only perform part time? Many function bands only play once or twice per month as a hobby and work in "normal" weekday jobs. Do you really want to risk booking a band whose members may be stuck in rush hour traffic after finishing work on the day of your wedding reception?

Hard To Handle band are a highly versatile function band and have performed at literally hundreds of wedding receptions UK wide. With a wide ranging repertoire and top class musicians, the band is one of the most sought after acts performing in the UK today!
For more information on how Hard To Handle can help you make your wedding day a little bit more special, visit our website at:
http://www.hardtohandleband.co.uk/
Hard to Handle copyright 2008.

You can also visit the Your UK Wedding Directory to find out more about Wedding Live Bands

Blog goes live!!

Hurrah!!!

After toying with the idea, Your UK Wedding Directory now has it's own blog. It is as much our blog as your blog though. If there is anything you would like to see featured in this blog please don't hesitate to contact us at info[at]yourukweddingdirectory.co.uk. Please replace the[at] with @. This is to stop us getting lots of spam emails!!