Wedding Websites - The Ultimate Accessory!

Article written by Nearly Married. Wedding gift lists

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. 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