When my husband and I first talked about gift registries, we had two different perspectives. His Catalan nationality meant that he was used to money given as a wedding present; my Canadian background told me that friends and family would want to give us ‘things’. And the minute I saw the Deposit a Gift ad on OffbeatBride.com, I knew I had the perfect compromise: we would register our Honeymoon. Right from the start, we had a great feeling about it – and we were only proved more and more right as Dana and the Deposit a Gift site team made our lives a whole lot simpler. From train tickets to meals in Montreal, we registered each step of our first romantic getaway together, and it couldn’t have been easier. Even though the site was based in the USA, and we were in Canada, it was straight-forward and hassle-free to handle our account, and the fact that Dana was always a message away to clear things up was a blessing. We are very, very glad we chose Deposit a Gift for our registry, because they gave us our first holiday as a couple. We have no reasons to hesitate – this site is highly recommended!

How do you ask for money without asking for money? It's a question brides and grooms have asked for ages. Flat out 'asking' for cash is considered tacky and in bad taste by every wedding etiquette book out there, and while times are different and many people are asking for 'wishing well' gifts (i.e. cash), there is still that perception from older generations - many of whom would be in attendance at our wedding - that this was in poor form. Still - that's what my fiance and I needed. We had lived on our own successfully and had a lot of good stuff. Nice silverware, cookery, bedding? We had all that. What we needed to do was remodel my husband's three-story townhouse and make it our home. For 15 years, it had been his alone with his style and tastes. Now, we needed to make it ours. Our wish list included all hardwood stairs and floors on the second level, new carpeting on the first floor and on the third floor in the bedrooms and the offices, new tiling for the bathrooms, kitchen, and foyer, and new paint in every single room, including the kitchen, hallways, and bathrooms. We also needed a new bedroom set and couch, light fixtures, etc. etc. This was a project to make HGTV green with envy and no amount of fine china was going to make it happen. I decided to start looking online for online gift registries and happened upon a couple on several wedding websites, but then, in one random talk thread I don't even know where, I saw someone mention DepositaGift. I liked the sound of that and visited the site. It was BY far the most inclusive, well-designed site of ALL of the registries I visited. Not only did they have categories and icons for every type of registry (new home, baby, wedding, etc), it was fantastically specific to whatever you were looking for. I literally registered for hardwood floors, carpeting, paint, etc. I was able to break down the increments whichever way I saw fit (i.e. hardwood floors $4,000 - 40 people; $100 gift) and arrange the registry interface in the way that was the most appealing to us. We invited 600 people to our wedding and had 450 attend, so we were able to really utilize the increment breakdown effectively. For those guests we knew would want to give a physical gift, we made sure to register at another store (i.e. Crate and Barrel, Macy's, etc.) and then add that registry to the Deposit a Gift Site (there is a tab for other registries). That way, when we sent out our registry information with our invitation, we only had to give one website! Genius! We made a little note that greeted our guests on the Deposit a Gift website, promising that we would post pictures to our wedding website after it was all done so they could see their 'gifts' in the house. When it was time to get our check from Deposit a Gift a couple months after the wedding, I simply went back on, clicked 'cash out' and received a check in the mail within 5 business days! The fee that was taken out was nominal and well worth the convenience of the site. We are now in the midst of remodeling and redecorating every room in the house and we know we couldn't have done it without Deposit a Gift. I will be using Deposit a Gift for many more occasions in the future and recommending it to anyone and EVERYONE I know. P.S. The site even makes it easy for you to send out your 'thank-yous' after the wedding, since there is a little check box you can click once you send it. Also - for your guests, if they want to give you a print out of the gift, they can! Many of our guests printed out a little card stating their gift right from the website and then enclosed it in a card at the wedding. Too cute!

We chose Deposit a Gift because we live in NY and most of our family/friends are in Mexico or out of town. We wanted to have a registry where people could choose from our list or opt for their own personal touch. Having been married for a year before the big wedding, we already had most of the things we wanted. But there are always things you haven't bought, mostly because you're thinking about having the best wedding ever and all your money and time goes to that. Also, half our registry was focused on our honeymoon. We knew we wanted it to be extra special so we listed everything from the air tickets to Iceland to the cab to the airport. This was extremely convenient because we took off after the celebrations knowing we could have the best time ever and knowing it was a gift from our friends. I wanted to list all the things we really wanted and researched the prices, so our guests knew that we were really getting what they gave us. But the most important part of it was that most of our guests were in Mexico and DAG made it super easy for people in other countries to give us something. The site allows you to have a record of who gave you what, along with all their contact info to keep track of the Thank You part. Overall, it was perfect. Our wedding in Mexico was lovely and the honeymoon was unforgettable.