1bigpresent.com Blog

There are now many fantastic online Giving Services for wedding couples to choose from.  Here are our top tips to help you to select the right one for you:

1.  Decide what type of service you require!  Would you prefer your cash gifts to be untied ie free to be used as you wish once the big day has passed?  If so then a cash/gift voucher based service such as 1BigPresent.com provides an ideal solution as it offers a secure and effective way of collecting your gifts and of course it eliminates security worries on the actual day!!

2. Do your homework!  Remember - your chosen Gift List Service is acting as a temporary bank account for you and for your wedding guests so ensure that you have confidence in them.  Act upon recommendations, but always look for a valid UK address and/or telephone number!  Email/phone them first with any queries or to discuss any concerns you may have.

3.  Study your chosen website carefully. Read the FAQ’s and understand the charges.  Where possible select a service which applies a maximum charge or even a fixed cost; at this stage you can’t possibly know how much your Gift Fund will achieve and so an uncapped percentage fee could quickly rocket to more than you thought.

4.  Think about ALL of your guests!  An online giving service suits most wedding guests these days but there will always be one or two who can’t or won’t use an online service.  At 1BigPresent.com we often see couples who have set up an online giving service with us but who also have opened a traditional department store list just to offer a little flexibilty for their wedding guests.

5.  Use the website to full advantage!  Upload photographs and as much information as the website will allow! Tell your guests about the gift that they are helping you to achieve whether it be boringly functional, or unique and quirky.  There is nothing worse than an empty page with nothing of interest to capture your guest’s attention so use the space given to you to full advantage.  And finally at 1BigPresent.com we advise our customers wherever possible to leave their account open for a short time after their big day.  For whatever reason, and it does still surprise us, there always seem to be one or two guests who add to the gift account AFTER attending the celebrations!!

Not blogged for a while and had my backside booted for that very reason, so here we are again.  In the life of ’she who eats, sleeps and breathes’ 1bigpresent.com, it can be such a headache each day to establish which tools are most effective in driving traffic to the website.  I try my best to keep each flame alive, namely a little bit of Twitter (follow 1bigpresent), a little Facebook and some strategic ads and editorial placed here and there, but all whilst keeping within a reasonable budget, oh and just working hard to keep everything about the site fresh and up to date.  It is oh so easy to let the purse strings go and to run with every suggestion, especially when you are keen to try new ideas, but common sense soon gets the better of you and reigns you back in.  At lease  blogging doesn’t come with a large invoice, so yes, it’s time I got back in the saddle!! 

I would be fibbing if I was to say that there are not many headaches with running a site such as 1bigpresent; the biggest to date has been finding it’s niche, somewhere for it to fit when marketing!  It isn’t a site selling gifts or presents, it is actually a service which does a beautiful job of linking everyone together, no matter where they are in the world, towards a fabulous birthday or wedding gift or just the cash to buy what you need.  But headache aside I love it’s diversity!  We are currently holding gift accounts for a massive civil ceremony in Ireland, a marriage across two cultures (Hong Kong and UK), and a couple getting married in Italy, having a reception in the UK and then leaving for their new life in Oz.  Most wedding/civil couples use their gift fund for a honeymoon (or to pay their credit card bill after the honeymoon!) but we have seen some original and interesting gift ideas going on, namely a renovation holiday home project to which all guests are invited when it’s complete, a unique piece of Scottish artwork, oh and my absolute favourite, the Sonos music system which allows you to play unlimited music around your home.  This was a request from one of last year’s birthday people on 1bigpresent.com and after reading her fabulous account of the product I have to say I succumbed and am now the delighted owner of a Sonos S5 Zone Player and the impossible to put down hand held controller, which to my shame I must admit I am incredibly possessive of.  And so I guess one of the loveliest things about running 1bigpresent is sharing in a little bit of each celebration and knowing how much the service helps each wedding couple or birthday person to achieve what they want in a gift.  Does that cure my 1bigpresent headache?  Hmmm nope, I still need 1bigparacetamol for that!!