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25 JULY 08 UPDATE: This blog post mentions the gift list, Wrapit. According to the BBC today, Wrapit is experiencing financial difficulties and is not taking payments from customers. Find out more in the BBC report: Fears for wedding gift list firm

We’re all hoping our bride, Krissy (below) is able to receive the gifts her family and friends wanted to give her and her husband…

I’m always telling people to ask their wedding suppliers questions, however mainstream they might appear to be, as even if you don’t get the product or service you were after, it will have planted a seed in their minds so that the next person who asks (or the next, or the next!) actually does end up with an organic fair trade chocolate fountain or a local wine on the hotel’s wedding breakfast menu.

So I was pleased to hear from my colleague and ethical bride-to-be, Krissy, that she has been doing just that with regard to her wedding gift list – which follows on nicely from our ‘Green wedding gifts galore’ post below! Over to Krissy…

“What? You must have a wedding list!” my grandmother said, “it’s tradition!”

The thought of having a list of ‘wants’ and advertising it to all our guests didn’t sit right with George and I.  I know it’s what everyone says but we really don’t expect presents and having everyone attend is a ‘gift’ in itself.

However, many of our guests expressed a genuine desire to buy us a present and pleaded with us to make it easier for them by telling them what we wanted!

So, in a bid to avoid receiving 50 identical toasters, we researched our options.  We were keen to have a wedding list that included both charitable giving options and ethical gifts too.  We looked at nearlymarried.co.uk and were impressed with the website but when we realised that guests were charged an extra £3.50 for each order, it was an instant ‘no no’.

Throughout the process we had been avoiding the big name brands but one afternoon, I had a closer look at one such online store: wrapit.com

The website offers charitable donations as an addition to your wedding list and has over 40,000 products to choose from.  “Surely some of thos must be ethical”, we thought!

So we popped along to their Wandsworth store for a meeting.  The Sales Assistant was fantastic – really down to earth and helpful.  I bombarded her with questions about the ‘green’ brands they worked with and the charity gifts – not something she knew much about seeing as they aren’t the main source of sales for the company!

The next day, however, she got back to me with a list of all their ethical brands and an explanation as to why they were ethical, e.g. UK based, using local produce, recycled materials, sustainable sources etc. It turns out there is plenty of choice and some brilliant ideas so everyone’s happy! As Katie said, if you don’t ask, you don’t get!

Remember the Titans move Take care,

Krissy
Ask for advice and share your top tips in the wedding gift list section of the Ethical Weddings Forum