My daughter asked me to research the best wedding registries. There are so many to choose from she simply didn’t have time to go through them all.
At the end of this page you will see which registry she chose and my personal recommendations if you don’t live in the UK.
Which one you choose depends on which country you live in . I have included details of the best ones in the USA, the UK and Australia. Some registries work internationally.
The next thing to decide is if you intend to ask for products, such as home wares, as gifts, or whether you want to build a cash fund.
A cash fund can be built up by getting guests to select and pay for presents, then receiving the value of these in cash from the registry. Presents can be real items from real retailers or they can be ‘ideas’, that is, a product image and description but not an actual item of stock from a shop or online retailer.
Gifts can also be ‘experiences’. These are represented in the registry as an image and a description of something lovely to do during the honeymoon. But again these are just hypothetical ways in which you might spend the money given. So a guest might select ‘champagne breakfast on the beach’ with a price tag of $100 and you might not want that so you spend that $100 on a boat trip round the island instead.
Below I compare 20 registries and funds according to simple criteria. To read the full article about these registries go to my post here.
Do you want to ask for actual products or build cash or both?
| Registry | Products | Cash | Both | |
| John Lewis & Partners | UK | Yes | ||
| Amara | UK | Yes | ||
| The Wedding Shop | UK | Yes | ||
| Prezola Free | UK | Yes | ||
| Prezola Paid | UK | Yes | ||
| Wedding Wire | Int | Yes | ||
| My Registry free | Int | Yes | ||
| My Registry paid | Int | Yes | ||
| The Knot ex USA | Int | Yes | ||
| The Knot USA only | US | Yes | ||
| Amazon | Int | Yes | ||
| My Registry free | Int | Yes | ||
| My Registry paid | Int | Yes | ||
| Tendr | US | Yes | ||
| Honeyfund | Int | Yes | ||
| Zankyou | Int | Yes | ||
| Not Another Toaster | UK,US,OZ | Yes | ||
| Zola | US | Yes | ||
| Wedding Gifts Direct | OZ | Yes | ||
| The Wedding List Co | OZ | Yes |
Do you want guests to be able to group-fund your more expensive items?
| Registry | Group-fund Gifts |
| John Lewis & Partners | Yes, via gift cards |
| Amara | Yes, via gift cards |
| The Wedding Shop | Yes, via gift cards |
| Prezola free | Yes |
| Prezola paid | Yes |
| Wedding Wire | |
| My Registry free | |
| My Registry paid | Yes |
| The Knot ex USA | |
| The Knot USA only | Yes |
| Amazon | Yes via gift cards |
| My Gift Registry free | Yes |
| My Gift Registry paid | Yes |
| Tendr | |
| Honeyfund | |
| Zankyou | |
| Not Another Toaster | Yes |
| Zola | Yes |
| Wedding Gifts Direct | Yes |
| The Wedding List Co | Yes |
Do you want to add items from other retailers?
| Registry | Add items from other retailers |
| John Lewis & Partners | Only travel through Kuoni |
| Amara | No |
| The Wedding Shop | Yes and they source and deliver |
| Prezola free | No |
| Prezola paid | Yes, you receive cash |
| Wedding Wire | Add any item and guests buy direct from that retailer |
| My Registry free | Add any item and guests buy direct from that retailer |
| My Registry paid | Add any item and guests buy direct from that retailer |
| The Knot ex USA | No |
| The Knot USA only | Yes, you receive cash |
| Amazon | Add any online item |
| My Gift Registry free | Yes, you receive cash |
| My Gift Registry paid | Yes, your receive cash |
| Tendr | Cash for any item |
| Honeyfund | Cash for any item |
| Zankyou | Cash for any item |
| Not Another Toaster | Cash for any item |
| Zola | Add any online item |
| Wedding Gifts Direct | Yes add up to 10 gifts |
| The Wedding List Co | Cash for any item |
Comparison of costs of 20 registries
| Registry | Set up costs | What you get |
| John Lewis & Partners | Free | Listing |
| Amara | Free | Listing |
| The Wedding Shop | Free | Listing |
| Prezola free | Free | Listing + website |
| Prezola paid | £57 upgrade currently free (Jan 2019) | Listing including cash fund + website |
| Wedding Wire | Free | Listing + website with tools |
| My Registry free | Free | Listing for products only |
| My Registry paid | $5 per gift + credit card fee | Listing including cash fund |
| The Knot ex USA | Free | Listing products only + website with tools |
| The Knot USA only | Free | Listing including cash fund + website with tools |
| Amazon | Free | Listing |
| My Gift Registry free | Free | Listing |
| My Gift Registry paid | $45 to upgrade | Listing including cash fund |
| Tendr | $5 per gift + credit card fee | Listing + page |
| Honeyfund | Free/£29.99 upgrade currently free (Jan 2019) | Listing/Upgrade + website |
| Zankyou | Free/£55 to upgrade | Listing/ Upgrade + website |
| Not Another Toaster | $150 + credit card fee | Listing |
| Zola | Free | Listing |
| Wedding Gifts Direct | $4.95 payable by each guest/$99 to add cash fund if guets do not buy $2500 min. | Listing/ including cash fund |
| The Wedding List Co | $9.95 – $12.95 payable by each guest + Set up fee (not stated) | Listing including cash fund |
Which registries offer you a discount on unpurchased gifts after the wedding?
| Registry | Discount on unbought gifts |
| John Lewis & Partners | No |
| Amara | No |
| The Wedding Shop | 10% |
| Prezola free | 20% |
| Prezola paid | 20% |
| Wedding Wire | 0 |
| My Registry free | 0 |
| My Registry paid | 0 |
| The Knot ex USA | 0 |
| The Knot USA only | 0 |
| Amazon | 10% or Prime 20% |
| My Gift Registry free | 0 |
| My Gift Registry paid | 0 |
| Tendr | 0 |
| Honeyfund | 0 |
| Zankyou | 0 |
| Not Another Toaster | 0 |
| Zola | 20% |
| Wedding Gifts Direct | 20% |
| The Wedding List Co | 25% |
So which registry did my daughter select?
She lives in the UK. She very much wants friends and relatives to know they are buying real gifts which will be delivered to her after the wedding, not just pictures of gifts. She and her fiance have most of the basics but they love creating beautiful interior spaces and inviting friends round for dinner. She works with upmarket high-style home ware and furniture brands every day so her registry had to offer the right look and products.
After saving like crazy for their wedding and honeymoon she and her fiance are living these last few months on the minimum. They really want to relax and enjoy once they fly away. But with finances tight they’d love to get some help to make their honeymoon really memorable. They have friends and colleagues who totally understand this and are keen to put in money to build a small honeymoon fund instead of buying a traditional gift.
The choice was obvious. It had to be Prezola. Frankly Prezola just ‘get it’. As soon as you enter their website you know you are dealing with a company that understands how young people live today.
They have some excellent brands such as The White Company, Heals, Soho House and Smeg.
With 500 brands and 50,000 gifts covering every aspect of home and the outdoors Prezola is a no-brainer!
Apart from the fun of unwrapping all those gorgeous gifts, my daughter will have a honeymoon fund. ( they have an offer on right now to get the £57 upgrade to build a cash fund for free.) And with guests able to group-buy gifts over £80 she feels nobody will feel trapped into paying more than they can afford.
She doesn’t intend to use the free website option. But she’s keen on the generous 20% discount Prezola offer if she wants to hoover up anything outstanding on her gift list. A great way to ensure she has a complete set of matching bed linens and Le Creuset cookware for example.
Here are my personal favourites for people outside the UK.
Zola is my winner in the USA. You can build a cash fund as well as getting products. They have 50,000 products to choose from and even have AirBnB! What a great idea for weekends away for a newly-married couple.
They include all the tools to design a cool wedding website plus a host of planning tools for the wedding itself. And all this is free! As they say, they are an online retailer and don’t expect clients to pay extra for all the useful stuff they add. Oh, and did I mention they have partnered with the fabulous ABC Carpet and Home in New York? Definitely my kind of people.
Gift registries in Australia strike me as being expensive. They ask the guests to pay a handling charge. I feel that may well put guests off. None of the sites look very attractive. They don’t give me the urge to spend. There is a good selection of discounted items though.
So my choice? It’s got to be good old Amazon. OK, Amazon is not going to offer the pretty website but then that’s not really available on any of the Australian sites apart from the Internationals like The Knot – but there you can’t build a cash fund outside of the US.
Amazon has excellent prices and delivery and returns policies. It has a near endless selection of products. For guests with Prime there are even better prices on many items. It doesn’t have a cash fund but a gift card from Amazon is very close. The newly weds would be able to buy just about anything they needed with the card.
The winners
Want see why I chose these? Click on the links below and check them out.
Stop press! I told Prezola my daughter had chosen them and they said they would give everyone who signed up with them from this site £50 gift credit. So if your daughter decides on Prezola ask her to click on the link above to get her £50. (They’re giving me a little thank you too!)