Amazon Wedding Registry: We Review the Pros and Cons

If you’ve bought anything in the past decade, chances are you’ve used Amazon at least once or twice to do it. (Or if you’re like me, once or twice a week). It’s super easy to use, and is one of the best ways to get something you need fast, without even leaving your house. But creating a wedding registry is different. You’re not necessarily looking to get your wedding gifts overnighted. Instead, you’re looking for ease of use, a curated selection of gifts, and ideally some other fun wedding tools to boot. So, is an an Amazon wedding registry right for you? We discuss the pros and cons to help you decide.

Pros of an Amazon Wedding Registry

Guests already know how to use it

In our opinion, the number one pro of using an Amazon wedding registry is that guests likely already know how to buy gifts or products from Amazon. That means they won’t have to download a new app, or navigate to a website they’ve never been. They might even have a gift card or two they can use towards your gift, which always helps.

Start your registry here.

It’s the most popular wedding registry option

A recent survey from Baird showed that 45% of couples have an Amazon wedding registry, while Bed Bath and Beyond wedding registries (once a leader) slipped to 30%.

There are a ton of products to choose from

Whether you want to register for a KitchenAid stand mixer, 34 car-drying towels, or a battery organizer, Amazon likely has it.

Up to 20% completion discount

Everyone (not just prime members) with a wedding registry will get up to a 20% discount on any remaining items left on their Amazon wedding registry, up to $1,500. (That’s a maximum discount of $300). It used to be 10% for non-prime members, but this has recently changed. Note that you can only receive the 20% discount on select items sold and fulfilled by Amazon.com (so it can’t be any seller).

Seven days after your event date or “qualification” date (which is when you receive $500 or more in qualifying purchases), Amazon will send a one-time discount code to your email address to use on applicable items. This code is good for up to 90 days after your event date. Again, remember the 20% discount code only applies to purchases sold and shipped by Amazon, not other sellers.

You can create gift card funds

Guests can give you money by contributing to an electronic gift card fund, which you’ll receive as an Amazon electronic gift card. Plus, each gift will appear in your “Thank You List” so you can keep track of who gave you what.

2-day free shipping on eligible items and free returns within 180 days

Prime members will receive free, 2-day shipping on gifts over $25. On top of that, you’ll also have up to 180 days to return your wedding gifts. To start the return, you go to your Wedding Registry —> Thank You List. Then, select Return or Replace item. Note the 180-day window does not apply to items you purchased for yourself.

Bonus gifts

You may receive bonus gifts when you register for and receive items from select brands. For instance, a current offer for All Clad shows a free, personalized skillet when you receive $800 in All Clad gifts.

Group gifting

Want to register for a more expensive item but feel awkward about having one person potentially buy it for you? Mark bigger-ticket items on your Amazon wedding registry as a “Group Gift.” With this option selected (you can enable it in your settings, and select the amount to trigger the group gift option on. IE: If a gift is over $300), guests can contribute any amount they want towards the items, and you’ll receive the cash for it in the form of an Amazon gift card.

Partner access

Simply enter your partner’s email address and they’ll have the ability to add gifts and manage the wedding registry as well.

How to Set Up an Amazon Wedding Registry

Ready to start an Amazon wedding registry? Before you do, you’ll need an Amazon account if you don’t already have one.

Next, you’ll want to navigate to their registry option. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t make it easy to actually find where to start your registry. To do so, go to the hamburger (the three lines in a navigation bar) that says “All” in the top left corner of your desktop. Then, scroll all the way down to Programs & Features, then Gifting & Registry. From there, select “Wedding Registry.”

You’ll then see an option to “Create a Registry” or “Find a Registry,” if you’re a guest.

Adding Gifts to Your Amazon Wedding Registry

When you’re ready to start adding gifts to your Amazon wedding registry, you have a couple options.

Use the Search Bar

First, you can simply use the search bar like you normally do when you’re shopping on Amazon.com and search for a product you want to add.

Once you get to the product’s page, you’ll need to scroll down a bit to find the “Add to Registry” button on the right. Just make sure you’ve selected the color option and size/quantity you want before you add. (However if you make a mistake you can always edit it in your registry. More on that below.).

While adding gifts is fairly easy, it’s a little tricky trying to navigate back to your wedding registry. To do this you can either bookmark you wedding registry so it’s easy to find, or in the upper right corner under your name and account/lists, you’ll see “Find a list or registry” under “Your Lists.” If you click on that you’ll then be taken to a page where you can find your registry.

Try Amazon’s Gift Recommendations

Not sure what to search for? Try using Amazon’s recommendations instead. When you’re in your wedding registry dashboard, you’ll see several options for Amazon gift recommendations in the upper left, which are useful to browse before you start adding gifts so you can come up with a plan. Their gift idea sections include:

Ideas & Inspiration

This is where you can explore curated collections by room (IE: bathroom, living room, etc.), category, customer’s most-loved items, distinct trends (such as boho chic) and other themed options.

Popular Gifts

You’ll see a page of their most popular items that you can easily add to your registry in one click. If you do see an items you like but want it in a different color, you can hover over the image and click “edit details” where you’ll then be taken to that product’s main page.

Gift Advisor

This section will determine how many gifts you have (and still need) at various price points depending on the number of expected guests you entered. The general rule when adding gifts to your registry is to have 1/3 or 1/4 of your gifts fall within a certain range. IE: 1/3 of your gifts should be under $50, between $50-$150, etc. Amazon has created their own recommended categories for these so you can keep track of the gifts you have at certain price points, and how many you need to add.

Gift Card Funds

In addition to traditional wedding gifts, with Amazon you can now create gift card funds as well. This will allow guests to contribute any amount they want as a wedding gifts, and they will not be charged any fees since they are basically buying you an Amazon gift card. (You’ll receive all contributions in the form of an Amazon gift card that you can use on Amazon.com). To help personalize the gift card fund you can choose to add one of their pre-made gift fund categories (such as Honeymoon Fund or Home Renovation Fund), or create your own fund that you can personalize.

How to Share Your Registry with Guests

In order to let guests know about your wedding registry, you’ll want to go to your registry main page, then “Settings” in the upper right. It’s here you can choose the shipping address you want your gifts to go to, enable group gifting for gifts over a certain price, and choose the best option for sharing your registry. For instance you can make it public (which I wouldn’t recommend) or you can choose to make it private (so only you would see it when you’re logged in). The best option is to make it ‘Shareable.’

Once you opt for that setting and click save, you would then go back to the main registry page, and click the “Share” link in the upper right. Here you’ll find your registry link that you can email to guests or ideally put on your wedding website. While the link they initially give you is rather long, you can customize it so it’s https://www.amazon.com/wedding/share/YOURCUSTOMLINKNAME (depending on what’s available).

How to Access an Amazon Wedding Registry

Whether you’re looking to access your own amazon wedding registry page or you’re a guest looking to find a couple’s wedding registry, you have a couple options:

For guests

In addition to the shareable link you provide them, guests can access your registry via the Amazon Registry finder. If they’re on a desktop, they can navigate to the same page you did to sign up by going to the hamburger dropdown on the upper left, and select Programs & Features —>Gifting & Registry —>Wedding Registry. On the Amazon app, they would go to the hamburger in the bottom right, then click Gifting, Registry, and Charity —> Gift Cards & Registry —> Wedding Registry, and then Menu/Find a Registry. Guests can search by name, event location, as well as event dates.

If logged in, you can also go to your name in the upper right (where it says Accounts & Lists) and “Find a List or Registry.”

You can also opt to have your registry searchable on The Knot, if you’re using a Knot site.

For the couple

To find your registry you can ideally bookmark it on desktop. If not, you would navigate much the same way guests would and go to the “All” hamburger dropdown on the upper left of Amazon.com, then Programs & Features —>Gifting & Registry —>Wedding Registry. On the Amazon app, you would go to the hamburger in the bottom right, then click Gifting, Registry, and Charity —> Gift Cards & Registry —> Wedding Registry.

If logged in, you can also go to your name in the upper right (where it says Accounts & Lists) and “Find a List or Registry.”

WGM Says: Remember that you should not add your registry information to your invitation. You can instead add the url to your wedding website on the back of your invite, or on a separate insert card and include the registry information on there.

How to Keep Track of Who Purchased from Your Registry

Once you start receiving gifts from your Amazon wedding registry, you can start working on those wedding thank you cards. To see who bought what, navigate to your wedding registry page then select “Thank You List” in the upper right. Here you will see each item purchased along with the name of who bought it. This is also where you can choose to return or replace a gift.

Note that if the gift-giver has their address marked private for whatever reason (as this gift-giver does in the sample, below), then you’ll have to grab their address from your wedding guest list files instead when sending a thank-you note.

Cons of an Amazon Wedding Registry

While there are several pros of having an Amazon wedding registry, there are a few cons as well.

Lack of a checklist

While Amazon wedding registries feature a Gift Advisor section and other curated collections, it can be hard to know exactly what to add if you’re looking to create a traditional registry. Other registries will offer a “checklist” that allows you to see, for instance, how many wine glasses you should add, or list out kitchen appliances you might not be sure exist (but want!)

Items can go quickly out of stock

I added an Oster cordless wine opener, and 5 minutes later it said “Out of Stock” on my registry when I checked my registry page.

High-end brands are limited

If you’ve been dreaming about registering for a set of Frette sheets, you likely won’t find a large selection. That’s because higher-end brands tend to sell direct to consumer or through certain retailers only. For high-end brands that are on there, I would check the reviews to make sure they’re the real deal. Also, you should always try to choose products that are sold and shipped by Amazon, as those are typically vetted partners.

It can be difficult to make changes to a specific item

While you can click on “Edit Item” on your registry page to change the quality or delete a registry item (which you would want to do if it was out of stock, or if you no longer wanted it), if you want to say, change the color of the Breville Barista Express Espresso machine you added, you would have to:

1. Go to the specific item’s page
2. Add it to your registry in the color you want
3. Then go in and delete the original item you no longer want.

Overall, I wish there was a way to edit more details besides quantity.

There aren’t as many wedding-focused tools or selection

Amazon is my go-to place to shop for home basics, but as you know if you’ve shopped on there for anything, you have to really know what you want. If you’re looking for more hand-holding when it comes to unique gifts, wedding registries like Zola might be a better option. They have a very curated selection of products as well as checklists, and they also let you add gifts from other stores like Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and Crate & Barrel. You also won’t get any wedding-specific tools like you would with a Knot registry or even Wayfair. So these are just a few things to keep in mind.

Amazon Wedding Registry FAQ

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