Which kind of wedding registry suits you and your guests

Picking where to put your wedding registry feels like a small decision until you are on the sofa with five tabs open, trying to work out which one your grandmother will manage to use. The right choice depends on your taste and, just as much, on who is doing the buying.

The department store list

John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and their equivalents across Europe have run wedding lists for generations. You walk round the shop with a scanner, you can lift the casserole and feel how heavy it is, and the range covers everything from a dinner service to a mattress.

The strengths are practical. Returns are easy, customer service exists, and your older relatives already trust the name on the bag. The weakness is range. If you want the hand-thrown plates from the potter in your town, or anything that is not in the catalogue, it cannot go on the list. The selection also tends to assume a life with a formal dining room that most couples do not have.

Amazon and the other online-only lists

Amazon's registry has everything, the prices are keen and the parcel arrives the day after tomorrow. Some of the newer online platforms go further and let you add a honeymoon fund or a house-deposit fund next to the toaster.

You get a lot of control and an app to manage it from the train. The trade-off is feel. A gift bought in three clicks from a warehouse does not carry much of the giver with it, and for a few of your guests, the ones who still write cheques, the whole thing is a wall.

A list that pulls from any shop

The third option is a registry that is not tied to a retailer at all. You paste a link from anywhere, the Etsy lamp, the towels from the department store, the knife from the Japanese shop in Antwerp, and they all sit on one page. Guests are not locked into one shop's prices, and you are not locked into one shop's taste.

These lists usually let you add things that are not products too: a cooking course, a donation, or a fund that several guests can pay into together. When you create a wedding registry on Happy Giftlist, guests reserve an item so nobody else buys it, and you do not see who reserved what, so the surprise at the reception survives. For most couples this is the best fit. Coming from Happy Giftlist that will not surprise you, but the reasoning holds.

Boutique registries

If your taste runs to handmade ceramics, linen from a small Lithuanian mill or a whole house furnished from one independent homeware shop, some of those shops now run their own registries. You get a coherent look and you support a business you like.

The costs are a short catalogue, higher prices, and guests squinting at a name they have never heard of on the delivery note. It works best when most of your guests are your age and used to buying that way. It works less well when half the list is your parents' friends.

What to check before you commit

Whatever you lean towards, a few things decide whether the list is a pleasure or a chore. Check that you can share it with one link and that it works on a phone, since that is where every guest will open it. Guests should be able to see what has already been taken, and you should be able to add a note to an item to say why you want it or where it should go.

Check the price spread as well. A list with nothing cheap on it leaves your cousin's new girlfriend with no way to take part. And look at the returns policy of whichever shops you link to, because you will get a duplicate of something and one gift that does not suit the house.

Then think honestly about the guests. If a dozen of them would rather ring a shop than open an app, a department store list or a mixed approach saves them embarrassment. If your friends already share everything by link, a plain online list with a fund on it is what they expect.

Write down what you want on the list, write down who is coming, and see which option fits both. Once you have decided, create a wedding registry, put the first ten items on it, and send the link to your parents so they can test it before the invitations go out.