The five wedding registry mistakes that trip up most couples

Most wedding registry problems come down to the same five mistakes. Couples make them in the same order every year, and every one of them can be fixed before the first guest starts shopping.

1. Sharing the list too late or too early

Share it too late and guests have already decided. The aunt who wanted to buy something proper gives an envelope in a hurry, and the friends who asked in March and got no answer have bought a vase. Share it a year out and half the items are discontinued by the wedding, and you have changed your mind about the colour of the kitchen anyway.

Four to six months before the wedding is the window. Put the link on the invitation or in the follow-up message, and leave it at that. Guests do not need three reminders; the ones who want to use the list will find it.

2. Filling it with big items only

A KitchenAid mixer, a Le Creuset casserole, a full set of Villeroy & Boch plates. Fine, all of it. A list made of nothing else, though, puts guests in an awkward spot. A cousin who budgeted 40 for the gift now has to choose between overspending and giving cash she never meant to give.

Spread the prices. Tea towels and wooden spoons at 15, a decent chef's knife at 60, the mixer at 500 or more. The expensive things stay on the list; guests just need a way to chip in on them together, so no single person carries the whole mixer. On Happy Giftlist several guests can contribute to one gift, which is how the mixer gets bought without anyone paying for all of it.

3. Registering for the life you imagine

Registries fill up with things that look right in a magazine. A fondue set, twelve champagne coupes, a pasta machine. If neither of you has cooked for more than four people in the past year, the twelve coupes will move house twice unopened.

Look at the flat you live in now and list for that. Couples in a two-room flat get more use out of good storage jars and a decent vacuum cleaner than out of a serving platter for sixteen. Couples who cook every night want the knife and the heavy pan. The pasta machine earns its place only if one of you has already made pasta by hand and wants to do it again.

4. Leaving off the boring things

Nobody is thrilled to add bath towels. Add them anyway. Towels, bed linen, a good iron, a cutting board, a set of kitchen knives, food storage boxes. These are the things you will otherwise buy yourselves in the first six months, at the moment the wedding has emptied the account.

Two rules make them work on a list. Name the brand and size, so "towels" becomes "four bath towels, 70 by 140, in grey". And keep them in the lower price band, so they are the easy pick for colleagues and neighbours. The decorative bowl can wait; the bed linen cannot.

5. Tying the list to one shop

A registry at a single department store is simpler to set up and worse for everyone afterwards. The shop with the good pans has poor linen, its prices are its own, and the guest who lives abroad cannot order from it at all. Three separate registries at three shops, the classic fix, only moves the problem. Now you keep three lists in sync and guests do not know which one to open.

One list, with each item linking to whichever shop sells it best, solves both. The knife links to a kitchen specialist, the linen to the linen shop, the mixer to wherever it is cheapest that month. Guests reserve the item on the list, buy it where the link points, and nobody buys the same thing twice.

Start with the boring things, add the mixer, and share the link with the invitations. You can create a wedding registry in an afternoon; paste each product link and the name, photo and price come in on their own.