Opinions Please - Slightly controversial

I think as long as you have gifts at all levels of affordability, then you should have it where you like. That being said, you should be comfortable with your choice.

My friend had an argos list a couple of ears ago, it was great as it had everything they needed, and it was nice to buy something to wrap up and take to the wedding.

There are other places cheaper than John Lewis if their price range makes you uncomfortable. M&S are great, and they have a value range that has great stuff for not very much at all.

I completely get where you are coming from! We didn't have a list, didn't ask for anything, but in the end people kept asking so we said JL vouchers, B and Q vouchers and US dollars (we went to NY for honeymoon) we mostly got JL vouchers, but are struggling to spend them for the same reason as you, I don't normally get things from there, and when we browsed the kitchen items the other day, it was all more than we would normally spend and we didn't end up buying anything!!

Part of me says, it is wedding presents, and should be more 'special' and there is a reason I am sure why most people bought us JL vouchers over B and Q, I would choose to buy someone JL vouchers out of that choice, as it is 'nicer' shop - but we probably would have found the B and Q ones more useful as we shop there for home/garden!

Mmmm so really not sure how to help! People wouldn't mind buying stuff from Argos at all, why not have a serious look on the net later and see what you actually like from both and see which one gets the longer list.

sorry not much help!
Clare xxx

I totally see where you are coming from and would be thinking the same question myself if I was having a list however it really depends on what you want to put on the list.

If it's stuff you can only get in JL then go with there but if you can get all the stuff from both places then I'd go for the cheapest.

I've done a little bit of research and just picked a random thing but this kettle from JL is £64.45 but from Argos it is £68.49 so Argos isn't always cheaper!

It's worth noting that John Lewis do price match other retailers on branded goods, but I think the point your making is that the brands John Lewis sells are not the ones you would buy for yourself.

I went to a wedding a couple of years ago who used JL for their gift list, but I thought it wasn't the best choice as a lot of the guests didn't live any where near a John Lewis and weren't technologically savvy enough to buy online, so they had to go miles out of their way to buy presents. They did seem to choose only the most expensive stuff too, I think in the end I bought them a spaghetti spoon for £20 because it was the only thing in my budget!

Although I appreciate the added excitement of unwrapping your gifts when you get home, you have got the hassel of transporting them. Also, when my mum got married a few years back, some of her gifts were stolen from the reception. We never found out who did, and it's not nice to think of any of your guests stealing from you, but it does happen.

That said and done, if you're an equality-and-fairness-for-all type, bear in mind that all John Lewis staff are "partners" in the company, so any profit goes back to them in the form of an annual bonus, whereas I think Argos profits go only to line the pockets of the fat-cats at the top!

Either way, I think gift lists are a good idea ?

Alex ❤️

x x x

We're also having a gift lewis at John Lewis (and the initial reason that we went with them was because of the free gift we got for joining!)

I can see what you mean, and both sides of the argument.

I like that we have a gift list there inherently for the reason that we don't buy things for there normally. We were saying to some friends the other day that all the normal stuff we have for our home is stuff we both had left over from when we were at uni. We feel like we want upgrade our stuff and have a guest list that sets us up for married life. Wrongly or rightly, I guess in my mind because it's a special occasion we want something special for the gift list not something we would just pick up at the weekly shop at Tesco. It's just like the honeymoon, we decided to book the holiday of a lifetime, one that we wouldn't just book at any point.

We will be having a whole range of prices on our list as well to help our guests. And I found myself getting annoyed that our friends who got married last year put a Wii on their list so we won't be having anything like that!

I had a similar problem and wanted more choice than just one store, as I would be unlikely to buy it all from one place if we were to go and get it ourself. In the end I set one up with marriagegiftlist.com, there're a few other similar sites, guests buy from the stores individually so no risk of the site going bust and losing everyones money. I've found it easy to use so far. HTH S-K

We initially felt a bit the same (also have a JL list), but i think that the whole point is that you get lovely gifts that are things you wouldn't necessarily have otherwise. That is kind of the point of presents - if you were getting your Mum, say, a vase for christmas - would you rather get her a £20-£30 or so very nice one from JL, or a £5 one from Asda that is not nearly as nice but does the same job?

We have chosen some lovely Denby china from JL - and yes the plates are about £12 each - so we wouldn't be in a position to go and buy the full set should all our current (IKEA) plates break - but then .... what would be the point of our guests replacing our current (unbroken) Ikea plates with new Ikea plates? You need to choose things which are not 'throwaway'. And pricewise, if you add a dinner service or other things made up of smaller parts, people on a smaller budget can still buy you a bowl/mug/whatever for tenner or less.

Hopefully all of our wedding gifts wont get broken (!) but if one plate was, then I don't think we would hesitate to replace it with another the same - which at least is something that you can always do with a 'heritage' make such as Denby or similar - their ranges are available for many years and can be sopurced in the future via collectors etc. if you break one of your 6 Asda plates, you will probably never have a full set again!

I suppose the point is to have 'nice things' - some of which may be as much a collection as they are useful. We still have my grandparents wedding china - and i would love to think that ours will stick around.

Hmmm ...

Personally, I don't think it matters where your guest list is. IE why not argos or tesco or asda if there is stuff in those stores that you would use/want?? If there was something at JL that you just would never go buy yourself and you were asking folk to put towards it then thats different as its a luxury you couldn't afford/couldn't justify, but for every day stuff why pay all that more just for 'JL' (or harvey nicks or wherever)... Seems a bit crazy to me. If youre asking for every day stuff then what woud you prefer - lots of useful perfectly acceptable quality items or just a few items that came from 'john lewis' ...

A friend of mine had a gift list at Debenhams and their houseware stuff ain't cheap either - one of the few things I could afford was some candles, and if I recall they were about £12 each for normal pillar candles with a bit of colour thru' them. I got it cos it was on the list and they obviously wanted them but I felt 'mean' because all she was getting from me was some candles even tho' I spent over £40 on them. And this was like a really good mate - but I just couldn't afford the other things on their list that they could have had on an Argos or similiar list for half the price and then I could have afforded them.

Personally, for every day household items, I'd drop JL and go for somewhere were people could get your a really good quality 'whatever' for a reasonable price - you'll end up with much more than forcing folk to pay for a 'label'.

Even Ikea do brilliant every day household stuff - why not have a list with them?? We got lots of vouchers for Ikea and got a huge amount of really nice quality stuff from a massive dresser for the kitchen thru' to a new dinner service.

Good point made my PG. When we got our new Dyson we got it in Argos - then I checked the web and it was a good £25 cheaper in JL! Argos is assumed to be cheaper but isn't as JL are "never knowingly undersold" as they say.

Personally I would go with JL. A few reasons;

- you like the things in there and you will enjoy choosing your gifts, and your guests will enjoy buying them

- the experience of choosing the gift in a JL store is much more plesant (imho) than in Argos.

- You are not going to expect more gifts just because they are more expensive - guests will likely allocate an amount they would like to spend and look for a gift around that price so you are not going to be asking them to spend more but you might receive less iyswim.

We are having JL list but are going to be asking for items towards a dinner service and more cutlery - but not everyday like you but for special occasions, even if it was for everyday though I would still want it to be special- its still your wedding china no matter how often you use it!

I would compare a few things that you like in both and see if it is really that much more expensive tbh.

(oh and if it sways you at all we got a letter from Cambridge JL about choosing our list - they are doing special days for us to go in and we get champers and chocs while we look round! Yum. Bet they don't do that in Argos!)

Yup, they are 'never knowingly undersold'. So if you want a krupps coffee maker for instance it should be just as cheap as someone buying it from Argos etc.

I'm going for a John Lewis list! I love JL! But buy most of my everyday stuff from Sainsburys / IKEA etc but then I like JL for buying presents - and I suppose we will be listing things that are more present like and not everyday. I'm going to make sure there are plenty of things between £10 to £20 with a few things a bit pricier for people who club together or for parents.

When I've bought from a JL list I've loved that they don't charge the guests for P&P unlike Debenhams where I think it was almost £4 as standard. I've also bought stuff from a JL list instore and taken it home and wrapped it. Though I think most people don't do this - in some ways easier for B&G to have them all delivered in one go too.

My best friends had a list at Debenhams and also one at Argos for different types of stuff.

If you want JL as your gift list, have it. i see gift lists as an opportunity to get some nice, special stuff - some of which you might not use every day, some of which you might. i think as long as you have a range of gifts on there with a range of prices, you won't have too much of a problem. and what laura_lee said, they're 'never knowingly undersold' so could be cheaper than other places!

(FWIW, i don't think gift lists themselves are the controversial thing, as long as you're not using a SHOCK HORROR money/gift list poem to ask for it - i think *that's* the controversial thing)

We didn't have a list..But i have been to a few wedding where they have had JL and like others have said you spent £40.00 amd end up with 2 plates or a few utentils. I would much rather someone spend £40 and get something more substantial! Also the way money is at the minute, can may people afford JL's prices?

I totally understand what you mean. If you want the JL one then go for it. As everyone has said, as long as you have a good amount of gifts within price ranges, people will be able to buy you something within their intended budget and not feel like they cant afford anything on it.

One thing though, from a guests point of view, I went to a friends wedding a few years ago and their gift list was at JL. They had all individual plates etc on the list, but I just couldn't get to grips with buying 3 plates, or a plate a cup and a bowl sort of thing and I def couldn't afford to buy them a whole dinner set! I know that they obviously wanted the stuff but they were good friends and I wanted to remember what I had got them as a gift.

They actually ended up adding some other stuff on and I got them a vase from the list and then bought something I'd seen myself that I knew they would like but otherwise I'd have felt strange getting odd bits for them.

I probably have a different opinion on that now as a B2B as I understand how people would like that as a gift, but at the time I really didn't want to buy that.

(Maybe just me being strange though!!!) x

We had exactly the same thoughts as you and had an Argos gift list of mainly basic household & kitchen items but also asked for B&Q vouchers to buy some garden furniture. Most older, relatives bought from the gift list but all of them used the delivery option before our day which surprised us as it was extra £. JL is free so might have been a better option in hindsight!

How about:

'We've put a gift list in your card, just pop to JL, it isn't hard' ?

Haaaaaaa! ?

We had our gift list at JL and I'm really pleased we did. I agree with whoever it was that said you want your wedding gifts to be something special that will last a long time, so it made sense to us to go for slightly premium brands / ranges etc (not that we did particularly - JL own brand plates etc.) We also made sure we had a really wide range of items with the majority at the lower end of the scale - under £15. I think it's nicer to be able to build up and buy a couple of things to your budget as a guest rather than feel like you can't afford anything on the list! We did have a Wii though so sorry to the person who was annoyed by that - I hope you weren't one of our guests!

I see what some people are saying about not only wanting to buy 3 plates or whatever - and I think our guests mostly did this, wanting to buy a complete set rather than bits and pieces.

I like gift lists as a guest because I know I'm buying the couple something they want, rather than what I think they want. I do think the way it's approached by the b&g makes a difference - there's a huge difference between letting guests know you have a gift list and demanding they buy something from it. Several of our guests chose to go off list and we got some fab presents from them (although also a lot of silver photo frames!) Incidentally I'm not a huge fan of the little cards JL give you as inevitably they're the first thing to fall out of the invitation so make the gift list a bit prominent, iyswim.

Re: Argos, I'm not a big fan anyway but my only experience of buying off one of their gift lists was a bit rubbish, tbh. I didn't like the way you either had to pay a pretty huge delivery charge or go to the store, get it yourself, wrap it up etc. I think the whole JL 'experience' is much nicer as a guest - and there's no kind of delivery charge at all. Also, don't worry about receiving the gifts not being exciting - they're all in boxes / packaging etc and we had a very exciting morning opening all our gifts even though we knew what they were and they weren't in actual wrapping paper.

It's a difficult one. I felt really guilty putting all this 'stuff' on our list, and very greedy. However, we were overwhelmed by our guests' generosity and any feedback we got about the list and experience of choosing presents for us was very positive (particularly from more elderly guests). I suppose that those people who don't like the idea of a list as much choose to go off list and would have done that wherever our list had been. Whatever, we now have all sorts of lovely things that aren't just unmatching bits and bobs from uni days/ cheap things that won't last and we will treasure our gifts for a long time.

Thanks everyone for all your wise words. H2B came home from work tonight and had asked a couple of his male work colleagues what they thought, and they both agreed with what the majority of you lot have said. They both said that they wouldn't have a problem with buying a gift from John Lewis, although they probably would go for the cheaper items, and that a wedding present was supposed to be something nice and special that you wouldn't buy yourself.

So with that in mind I am going to stick with my JL list and just choose some of the basic things.

Thanks again ?

You sound like my H. He was convinced noone would buy items from JL and spent the whole time we were going round scanning saying, "What are X and Y going to buy?" As it turned out, X and Y (who he thought would spend no more than £20) bought us a microwave!

At the end of the day, people will buy what they can afford to buy, whereever you end up doing your list. We were bought some really generous things (such as the microwave and a DVD recorder), some people bought small items (my cousins bought two plates each to make up the set of six we had on the list, for example) and some just didn't buy us a gift at all. We didn't care. I personally feel that the wedding list should be things that you wouldn't necessarily buy for yourself. Isn't that traditionally the point of buying a wedding gift in the first place? To help set up the bride and groom in a new home, which they wouldn't be able to afford to do normally?

Make sure you have a range of items on the list so that people can buy things up to the value they want to. Our JL list had 120 items on it, 90 of which were under £25. It also had some more extravagant items which were weren't really expecting to get. The only things we didn't get were the bowls for our dinner service (which my Mum and H's parents clubbed together to buy for us for Christmas) and a digital radio.

Also, don't worry about people wrapping gifts and bringing them with them. They can choose to do that from JL, they don't have to go for the delivery. Most people at our wedding didn't, but a couple did. Also, when thinking about where to make your list, be aware that JL don't charge for delivery, whereas Debenhams charge each guest £3.50 for delivery, then deliver it all in one go. Bit of a rip off in my opinion.

Only if the B&G choose for the guests to be charged. You have a choice between receiving a giftcard from Debenhams (£50 I think) or for your guests to have free delivery instead.

TBH, it looks as if the vast majority of our guests have chosen to collect their gifts themselves, so we could have had the giftcard after all!

We had to have our giftlist with somewhere local as we knew that quite a few of our guests weren't computer savvy enough to cope with a 100% online one, and the only department store we have locally is Debenhams.

I get a contribution from my company as well so I'm going to drop a large hint today to a) remind my boss to claim it on my behalf and b) that we would like B&Q vouchers with it so that we can buy garden furniture.

I would go with the Argos one much easier to get to for your guests

I totally agree with what has been said - JL is great for those special 'present' type gifts but for more everyday use where things are more likely to be damaged or broken i would be looking at Argos.

We are setting up a honeymoon account with Thomson for people to contribute towrds our honeymoon, but we may set up a small gift list with JL as well x

Why not just have a gift list at JL and argos, that way you give your guests a choice and you can have more basic stuff at argos and a few special things from JL.

Hi

I am thinking about our gift list at the moment - and on sat I am going to look around a few places - I fancy john lewis but debenhams is cheaper - and where I normally shop so thinking might go for there but - debenhams annoy me as they charge each guest £3 odd for delivery - even though it may come in one job lot so cant decide

I will say howvever my friend had a gift list at argos and you get a really good selection of things to choose from and most people do have an argos catalogue in there home !

sorry that does not really answer question but prob swaying towards argos !!

HTH

Just a thought - is there a minimum amount you can put on to a gift list ?? as this might be a good option for me !

I'm doing a JL gift list....only a small one, but we're putting nice to have things on as we don't need anything! And we're only going to give details if people ask for them, through my parents and on our wedding website.

Everyone has said everything really already, nothing more to add! xX

We had our gift list with John Lewis & it was great, however, we wanted a decent cutlery set and crockery that would last us for life, and tbh I don't think you will get that if you buy cheapy every day stuff.

We had items ranging from £15 to £150 and were surprised at how generous eveyone was - the average spend was about £40 per couple, but some people (like our Best Man) bought the most expensive gift!

Some people took their gifts home to wrap & bring to the wedding, however, the majority was delivered to us, which was great as we had something to look forward to after coming back from honeymoon. The vouchers we had went towards buying a sideboard to put all our new stuff in. We've been living together for years and the gifts we recived were replacing exisiting old & knackered mis matching items. It's nice finally ,at the grand old age of 34, to have 'nice' things which we know will last forever.

We were also surprised at how many people gave us cash - we didn't ask for it, but were very grateful. Again, this went towards the sideboard fund

We're having a JL list. We wanted things that we could keep a long time - my Mum still uses some good pans and cutlery etc that was on my parents wedding list!

I don't think that Argos has such a good range of the nicer things that will last.

As a guest, I prefer to buy something small and nice from somewhere like JL rather than something bigger from an everyday shop like Argos, and also have an idea of how much I would like to spend rather than a particular item I want to purchase for people. Also sometimes groups of friends like to club together to get something.

I dont think a gift list or asking for money is controversial! I think the way you go about it determins whether or not it is controversial ahem *money poem*.

If you simply supply your list or request for cash i dont see a problem.

As a guest i would rather be given a gift list or the instruction to give money otherwise i wouldnt know what to do because i wouldnt want to turn up empty handed!

As others have said, JL seems like a good one to go with because the things that you receive will be a treat. Like you say, it'll be stuff you wouldn't usually buy for yourselves as a couple. And they will be things to look at and think, "ahh, what a lovely wedding gift." I'm sure guests would agree with this.

I have to say that with a guest hat on; I would prefer to buy from JL, as the experience is nicer and more 'weddingy' than queuing at Argos!!

We had a JL gift list but we weren't asking guests outright for any gifts, we've been together nearly 8 and a half years and only married for the 6 months (almost). We got a list done because we knew people would ask and we also asked for Trailfinder vouchers too to go towards the honeymoon.

When we did the list at JL we knew that we had to have a complete range as some of the peeps who were asking about gifts couldn't afford much so I think our cheapest item was about a fiver and we went all the way up to £199 but we told people that we weren't expecting anything as we have an awful lot of things already having lived together for 6 years. Had games to a Kitchen Fork, denby to a dyson and for a laugh we put on this though it's not quite the same as the one we put on.

We got a few things off the list, a lot of JL vouchers (but we also got some for Xmas too having got married in November) some cash and about £350 in honeymoon vouchers which helped! We also got items that weren't on the list. A vase, 2 copies of the same Willow Tree (?) figurine, a photoframe , a calender, cutlery set with expanding holder and a Blackwork Picture of our venue. We still have one present to come from my sister which we should be collecting at the weekend....

We went with JL because the staff were nicer and you don't get charged for delivery and wrapping either as the gift list owner or guest buying from it.

I've only ever bought vouchers from other peoples lists when there wasn't anything in our budget and had short notice (for cross-stitch anyhoo!). Have done two cross stitch samplers and got 2 ink drawings commissioned for a friend's wedding and my sister's wedding of their venue's. Not sure yet what we will do for my brother as we don't know when and where they are getting married.

j