A wedding registry is your opportunity to outfit your growing family with (almost) anything your heart desires! You want the best, and want your guests to be comfortable and excited about gift giving. We find the best wedding registries of 2020 in terms of range of options, cost, ease of ordering and shipping, easy returns and exchanges, and the biggest benefits (like big completion discounts) for YOU!
I know, we're not a wedding website, but ever since we posted our best baby registries reviews, we've been getting a lot of questions about wedding registries. So to satisfy those curious minds, we've done some serious research, asked a ton of newlywed couples, and pulled together all of this information into this comprehensive review. We hope you enjoy!
Finding the right wedding registry can be a daunting task, nevermind actually picking the items for your registry that you want right now, but can also see yourself using several years from now. Here are the most important features to consider when selecting your wedding registry:
Options, options, options! You want those silky sheets you saw at Bed, Bath & Beyond, that awesome blender you saw at Target, those beautiful pots and pans you found at Macy's, and that awesome Amazon Echo or Fire TV? Then registering at just one store is likely not enough to satisfy all of your needs. There are some awesome new ways to have one registry but add products from multiple stores. The idea is to use a primary registry site, like Amazon, and use their Universal Registry capability which allows you to add items from basically any website you can think of! The way it works is you install a little extension to your browser (like Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, or Firefox), and then just browse to any websites you want and click a button to add any item to your registry. This is the most popular way to make a registry nowadays, with brides and grooms realizing they don't want their hands tied by using just one store's registry.
Range of prices. Let's face it, not everyone in your circle of friends and family can afford the same gifts. While your great aunt Sally might shower you with lavish gifts without making a dent in her pocketbook, you also need to think about poor uncle Willie and his more modest lifestyle! For this reason, you want a registry that has a wide range of products and a wide range of prices. Williams-Sonoma, for instance, definitely has those $700 high thread count silk sheets you've always wanted, but doesn't have many gift-worthy options under $100. All of our best wedding registry options below have been vetted by our group of wedding experts, identifying the registries with the best range of products and prices to keep everyone in your wedding feeling great about themselves and the gift they've chosen!
Free wrapping & shipping. This isn't a deal-breaker, but certain registries do a much better job of offering gift wrapping and fast and free shipping options that won't aggravate your guest list. The last thing your uncle Willy wants is to pay additional fees to ship your gift to his house, and then have to find wrapping paper and try to do a wedding-worthy job of wrapping the gift! Make things a bit easier on your guests by using a registry that offers gift wrapping for their products, and also will ship it quickly to their home (or your home!) without added cost. You'll be surprised by how many people buy registry gifts within the week leading up to your big day, so fast and free shipping is important. Millions of people are Amazon Prime members, so that's a great option to guarantee free 2-day shipping on millions of products.
Easy returns and exchanges. Things change, your taste might change, and you might get duplicate products from people buying gifts from off the registry (yes, it happens!). In any event, you will want flexibility for returning or exchanging items without having to travel to a bunch of different stores and fighting with the unsympathetic cashier at the customer service desk (this brings back bad memories of my experiences at Bed, Bath & Beyond). Below we tabulate return policies for the most popular wedding registries.
Completion Bonuses and Incentives for you! One of the best features of a good wedding registry is a special discount on any items not purchased by your wedding date. That means you can use some of that money gifted to you to purchase those last items that didn't get gifted to you (oh, the horror!). This is the best reason to load up your registry with everything you can think of! The more the better, because it's more likely some good things will be left over that you can purchase yourself at a deep discount. Most registries have this feature, but some are certainly better than others. Below we tabulate completion programs and bonuses for the most popular wedding registries. This includes Amazon, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy's, Williams-Sonoma, Zola, Bloomingdale's, Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn! Be sure to scroll to the right side to see the entire table width.
The clear winner is the Wedding Registry by Amazon, which has the most benefits, especially if you and/or your guests are members of Amazon Prime. If you're not, you can sign up for a free month here. With a generous 180-day return policy, the biggest selection of any registry on our list, their Universal Registry option that lets you add registry items from a ton of popular sites (including many of the others on our list), their industry-leading completion discount of 20% if you're a Prime member, inexpensive gift wrapping, and their free 2-day shipping for Prime members, and free shipping for anyone with a purchase over $49. That's a ton of great features for a wedding registry, making it the best of 2020! The runner-ups are Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond, both of which are also recommended. Though their selection isn't quite as large as Amazon, they do offer a great range of products at great prices. Target also offers the multi-site flexibility, allowing you to add items from other websites, just like Amazon (Bed, Bath & Beyond does not). They also have a reasonable 10-15% completion discount, and the most flexible 365-day return policy, which is an awesome (if not excessive for a wedding registry) touch. So, that's a lot of great options for you to choose from. The other options on the list are also the most popular on the market today, so they aren't necessarily bad, they just don't offer as many benefits as the top-ranking options. And here are some take-aways:
- Amazon wedding registry has a 180-day return policy for any gifts purchased by guests from your wedding registry.
- Williams-Sonoma wedding registry has a 90-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Crate & Barrel wedding registry has a 90-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Pottery Barn wedding registry has a 90-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Macy's wedding registry has a 365-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Target wedding registry has a 365-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Bed, Bath & Beyond wedding registry used to give cold hard cash for gift registry returns, though that policy changed as of 2015, though they still have no time limit for returns (!).
- Bloomingdales wedding registry has a 365-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Zola wedding registry has a 90-day return policy for any gifts purchased from your wedding registry.
- Amazon wedding registry gives Prime members (join for free) a 20% off discount on items remaining in your registry after wedding day (10% for non-Prime members).
- Williams-Sonoma wedding registry gives a 10% off discount on items remaining in your registry after wedding day.
- Crate & Barrel wedding registry gives a 10% off discount on any items on registry or not on your registry after wedding day.
- Pottery Barn wedding registry gives a 10% off discount on any items on registry or not on your registry after wedding day.
- Macy's wedding registry gives 10-20% off discounts, depending on item type, for items remaining on registry after wedding day.
- Target wedding registry gives a 15% off discount on any items remaining in your registry after wedding day.
- Bed, Bath & Beyond wedding registry gives a 10% off discount on any items remaining in your registry after wedding day.
- Bloomingdales wedding registry gives a 10% off discount on any items remaining in your registry after wedding day.
- Zola wedding registry gives a 10% off discount on any items remaining in your registry after wedding day.
