RANT: Wedding Republic. Nice idea? Not so much.

A friend of ours used Wedding Republic (weddingrepublic.com) for her wedding registry. When my partner and I got married, we thought it would be a good way for our guests to contribute to our wedding. It turns out that Wedding Republic does not give you the full amount of what guests contribute and does not respond to inquiries. There’s no need to risk your guests’ money with Wedding Republic when there are safer alternatives.

The premise behind Wedding Republic is that we could identify a list of things we wanted to have our guests contribute cash towards. We could create small cost items, such as gift cards, or large cost items, such as a cruise or a trip to Vegas. We could divide the larger cost items into smaller contributions, or puzzle pieces. Guests could then purchase one or more puzzle pieces towards that particular item according to their budget. Wedding Republic charges guests a small 5.5% administration fee for their purchases. So a gift of $100 would end up costing the guest about $106. At the end of the registry, we would then collect the cash from the puzzle pieces that our guests purchased.

Supposedly.

Our guests purchased $175 in puzzle pieces. Wedding Republic likely charged a total of $185. However, we only received $139 of that amount. The only option to receive the funds was a direct deposit into our checking account. We received a $155 deposit ($20 short of what was purchased) and were also charged a $16 wire transfer fee, netting us $139 of the $175.

On their site, Wedding Republic does not disclose the wire transfer fee that would be charged. Nor is there an explanation for the difference between the deposit and the amount collected. Perhaps it’s a exchange fee? Wedding Republic seems to be based in Canada.

If you expect a much larger amount of cash from your guests, the wire transfer fee may not be a big deal. I also don’t consider it a big issue, overall. However, since there is no other option of collecting the funds, the fee should have been disclosed up-front, especially since guests are being charged an administrative fee. I would expect that fee to cover the costs of collection and disbursement.

Wedding Republic has failed to respond to any of the emails I have sent and has even ignored the post I made on their Facebook page.

I searched the web prior to using Wedding Republic to see if there were any negative reviews. I didn’t come across any. So here’s one for any future searchers: I can only recommend you don’t use Wedding Republic. Avoid it, if at all possible. Choose established store gift registries, instead. Guests can always will give you gift cards in lieu of cash—there’s no need to risk your guests’ money with Wedding Republic when there are safer and less frustrating alternatives.

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