Honeymoon Giftlist

giddypenguin

Hi guys, I was wondering if you could help,

The H2B and I were thinking about rather than receiving 'traditional gifts', if our guests wanted to give us something, we'd much rather a contribution to the honeymoon. I know that there are a few websites etc which allow you to set this up (rather than asking for cash) and a friend of ours who is getting married in a couple of weeks has recommended trailfinders, who seem nice - my question is, has anyone had the whole experience with these companies? From start to finish? What was good about them, was it better than simply receiving cash? What was the disadvantage?

Thanks!

ellay864

I'm intending to use trailfinders for mine. My friend used them for hers a couple of years ago and as a guest I can say it was absolute doddle to do and I loved not having to trawl shops. The only downside if you want to honeymoon immediately after your wedding is that you won't know just how much money you'll get so you will still have to pay the balance for the trip 8 weeks before (as with most holidays), but you then get paid back out of the money that gets paid in from wedding guests. I think it's nicer than being asked for cash - for some reason I'd feel a lot less comfy at that, plus the happy couple won't find the payments into trailfinders going walkabout!!

giddypenguin

That's very true - I think we will probably go with them - so you don't have to define the holiday when you sign up with them - you can leave it until later? Are their prices reasonable? The other thing I was worried about is if they 'have' your money, you've got to use it with them - might mean then hike their prices up.

ellay864

No, as far as I know you will need to know what you want upfront. My understanding is that you choose and book your holiday in the normal way and once you have it booked you then set up the account that people pay into. They are a travel agent so the money paid in has to go to that holiday. Some of the other companies that are around are just there to hold your money and then pay to you to use where you want. But they usually charge a handling fee for that. With trailfinders you just book the holiday with them, as anybody else would - the only difference is that they let other people pay towards it. I think that whatever money goes in gets paid back to the card you pay the balance from (on the basis that you'll get the money closer to the wedding after the balance will have been needed)

welshgirl78

We used http://www.buy-our-honeymoon.com/ and found them very good.

I think it cost £50 which I know a lot of people don't want to pay but I feel we saved far more than that by booking most of it ourselves rather than through a travel agent. We went to South Africa / Mauritius and chose / booked everything individually with the help of Trip Advisor.

The benefits were we were able to put a good description of everything and upload a photo, people really felt like they were buying us part of our honeymoon not giving cash - infact most people (surprisingly!) thought they had purchased the actual thing rather than send me the money through paypal! We were able to put loads of cheap lunches etc as well as pricier items like a speedboat trip. We found the "good stuff" went first (all price ranges) and then the later guests ended up contributing to safari and accomodation!!

The other disadvantage was having to accept paypal fees, we chose to take them off the amount donated rather than charge extra for them (FYSWIM). However the guests really loved the site (again surprisingly - I thought it might be a bit old hat as I read loads about them here... but I guess most people don't hang out on wedding forums!)

I would use them again - HTH

katerinasol

welshgirl78 wrote: »

We used [link] and found them very good.

I think it cost £50 which I know a lot of people don't want to pay but I feel we saved far more than that by booking most of it ourselves rather than through a travel agent. We went to South Africa / Mauritius and chose / booked everything individually with the help of Trip Advisor.

The benefits were we were able to put a good description of everything and upload a photo, people really felt like they were buying us part of our honeymoon not giving cash - infact most people (surprisingly!) thought they had purchased the actual thing rather than send me the money through paypal! We were able to put loads of cheap lunches etc as well as pricier items like a speedboat trip. We found the "good stuff" went first (all price ranges) and then the later guests ended up contributing to safari and accomodation!!

The other disadvantage was having to accept paypal fees, we chose to take them off the amount donated rather than charge extra for them (FYSWIM). However the guests really loved the site (again surprisingly - I thought it might be a bit old hat as I read loads about them here... but I guess most people don't hang out on wedding forums!)

I would use them again - HTH

That sounds great! My boyfriend and I want to ask for a contribution to our honeymoon, we have the flights paid for (Easyjet - keeping it classy! :rotfl:) but won't want to scrimp and save once we're actually there, will want to go out for dinner/to bars, etc. Asking your guests to buy something rather than give money sounds much more polite, especially as the British hate that subject

honey_rose

We've just set up our list with buy our honey moon as well and so far, it's been great!

The website looks really professional and you can change the web address if you want (ours is our-dream-honeymoon.com). It's so easy to set up and personalise it and being split down bigger gifts into smaller ones is a great feature (such as £400 helicopter trip can be broken down into 10 x £40 gifts).

We haven't sent out our invites as yet so can't comment on payments etc but from what I've seen so far, I'd definately recommend them

giddypenguin

With that buy-our-honeymoon site, do you get inserts for the invitations? Or do you make them yourselves? It's a bit pants that you have to pay £50 initally to set up the site, then have to pay a further percentage to paypal to actually get your hands on your money - why couldn't they send out a check or just transfer it into your account?

I guess the main advantage with trailfinders is that you get all your money - but the main disadvantage is that you can only spend it with one company...

Thanks for your answers guys, very helpful - anyone used any other schemes?

honey_rose

You'll get sent out little cards (about business card size) which match your theme on your website. You can personalise these to say what you want really, and it includes the link to your website.

You don't have to use PayPal either. We've given people the option of either paying by PayPal, or bringing the gift on the day. You can pretty much word the payment section how you want.

Another option they give is you can put your bank account details on your site so people can transfer the money directly to you. There's a handy password feature if you want to do this and keep your bank details safe.

£50 seems a lot, but to us, it was a nicer way of asking for cash contributions to our wedding.

Hope that helps!

giddypenguin

Thanks for that, just spoke to a lovely lady at trailfinders, and she says you don't have to sign up to a holiday before you set up your gift list, you can even wait until after the wedding to pick and book your holiday, so you wouldn't have to pay up front - but obviously you'd have to wait 2 months after the wedding to go away.

Thanks for the tip on buy-our-honeymoon, I will look into it further... seems a bit of blunt website title though!!!

ellay864

Oh wow thanks for the TF info...maybe they've changed since my friend booked hers a couple of years back,...sounds even better
Tbh though if I don't choose soon we'll never get it sorted lol...I'd also like to be able to say where we're going if I'm asking people to pay towards it but it's great there's the option