Thursday, March 14, 2013

"Vendor" Post: Deposit a Gift

I put the word "vendor" in quotes there because, well, they're not really selling us anything. Except for a small service charge, using Deposit a Gift is free! But they are just one of the companies we're using for the wedding, so I'm including them in our vendor posts to explain what Deposit a Gift does and why we chose this type of registry for our wedding.

Deposit a Gift is a type of registry in which contributors give cash to the married couple, instead of specific gifts. The couple lists types of things they would use the cash for, and gift-givers can contribute any amount toward that goal. I particularly like this because it can be difficult to buy a wedding gift for someone if you're living on modest means, and this allows people freedom to contribute what they can toward what can be very expensive things--unlike regular wedding registries, where you have to choose whatever you can pay the full price for, and that may not be something you wanted to give.

While there are several online cash registries out there, we ultimately chose Deposit a Gift because it was extremely tough to find a bad review out there. No matter where we turned, we heard "easy to use" and "excellent customer service". In fact, many users referred to the owner by name, praising her for her personal assistance. How often can you say that about a big online business? They also had no hidden fees, no weird surcharges...pretty much no fees at all. Creating an account was super easy, and we are very happy with our registry.

We chose a cash registry because we've already been together for several years and have built a home together. We already have all the household things we need, most of which have been passed down through our families and are things I would never consider trading in for shiny new things. People have said to me, "your wedding registry is your chance to get that fantastic 8-in-1 hairdryer/martini shaker/blender!", but we are not really ones for fancy gadgets or anything like that. As I mention in my registry, I would honestly be the happiest if everyone donated to the two charitable causes we listed. I listed CHANGE, Inc., where I work, and the one thing I've been dreaming about for my wedding is being able to walk into my executive director's office and hand him a big check, because I personally know that we're worried about budget cuts and we're struggling. I literally daydream about this, which I don't do for anything else on the list. We wanted people to be able to choose from a variety of things, but the main takeaway was that we wanted them to give us things we could do, not things we could have. We want people to contribute to our future together and to help us support causes we care about. We hope people are just as excited to give us these kinds of gifts, instead of the custom monogrammed soap dish, or whatever people usually put on their registries. (Can you tell I don't really know much about weddings?)

If you'd like to see our example, you can view it here.

2 comments:

  1. Hey! Just saw your post on facebook and I've been looking at a few of your entries! I think it was a really great idea to explain why you did this as a registry. But, having been involved in a bazillion weddings in the past few years, just a warning: a lot of people do not like giving cash or donating, so not having a registry means that people are going to be giving you all kinds of dishes and towels that don't necessarily match, as well as appliances you already have. So just hope that people attach gift receipts and be prepared to do a bit of returning. Not saying that you shouldn't do what you want, because that's another thing about weddings, you should absolutely do what makes you happy.

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    1. Do you know if that's true now for Jewish weddings, too? Noah said that it was traditional for his Jewish relatives and friends to give cash. Now on my side, we'll have to see...

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