Wedding Gift Registry

A survey from weddingsonline and Bank of Ireland revealed that when it comes to wedding gifts 4.9% like to give through a give registry and 2% of brides and grooms-to-be would like to receive a gift via registry. The main item on the agenda is cash for most couples. Now, what i would say is what you want and what you get are two very different things!

Through the years i met so many married couples that said they got so many gifts as well as cash and for some they loved the gifts that they got while others said they got too many of the one thing. Whether you like it or not, not everyone likes to give cash or someone may want to give you a keep sake. I was asked throughout the lead up to my wedding, what do you need and i felt really embarrassed saying i needed anything. In hindsight, i should have gone in to a gift registry and listed the stuff i needed.

I popped in to Arnott’s Wedding Gift Registry to see what this service was all about and how it works. What became apparent was that this gives you the opportunity to take control and pick pieces you need. You will tend to find that most of your own friends will give you cash but its family and maybe groups of work colleagues for example that will give you a gift.  You could have the best of both worlds and only tell those whom you know would like to give a gift rather than cash that there is a gift list available.

As far as Wedding Gift Registries go, You cannot get better than Arnotts. What i loved was the flexibility of this services. Clare McCabe is the manager and she is amazing, she is so helpful and genuinely cares.

Here are some of the nuggets i learnt:

1. Even if you pick out a whole load of gifts, the total value is added up and that is listed as credit. Therefore, if you change your mind after the wedding, you can reallocate your credit to use anywhere you want in store.

2. You can pick a large gift i.e. TV, Sofa Suite etc and it can be broken down in to contributions so if there is one gift worth €1000 you can break it down in to x10 €100 contributions.

3. There’s free delivery anywhere in Ireland and standard shipping rates apply to outside Ireland.

4. You get a gift registry card that you can put in all invitations or maybe only certain invitations.

5. Once you have your shop appointment, everything else is done online. Your guests can just log in and do everything in the space of minutes.

6. Even if the items you pick in the shop are on sale, you still get full price credit.

7. On lists of €1000 and over, you get a 5% of the value of your wedding list back on a gift card.

8. Points from all gifts go on your wonder card and not the guests

9. You get a print out of all of the gifts and who bought what so that you use when writing your thank you cards.

10. Guests can leave notes on each purchase.

11. There is a closing meeting where you can decide to take each gift or pool all of the credit to vouchers to spend on whatever you want in Arnotts.

12. They advise that you pick items at all price ranges. There may be guests that cannot make it from abroad or guests going to the afters. Lower value items would be a good idea for these scenarios. On the other side there might be groups that want to get one big present so the contribution options are great.

Here are my favourite gift ideas that can be bought through the registry!