Hi ladies! Me and OH have been having a nosey at honeymoons this evening and have come across V1rg1n's Holiday Gift List where you can open an 'account' after you have booked the honeymoon and your guests can transfer money into it to go towards your honeymoon.
I notice it says that you don't have to close your Gift List until up to 4 weeks after your departure date, so does this mean you pay the deposit upon booking and that the rest of the balance doesn't need to be paid until after the honeymoon? I notice when booking online that it says the balance is payable 12 weeks before the departure date so a little confused - we pretended we were booking so we could see the final costs etc.
Just wondering if anyone has had any experience of this? X
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorprincesspixie
oooh im glad you've said this as we were thinking of doing the same xx
Officially married my best friend 2/5/2015 (secretly)
Big wedding 18/06/2016
CommentAuthorMrsRobson2Be
edited
It definitely has to be paid in full 12 weeks prior to your departure, I'm not sure what happens to any over payments your guests make? I assume either you'll receive virgin vouchers to book excursions or save for another holiday or maybe they refund you the over payment.
CommentAuthorFlossie
edited
Right ok, that's the main thing I was confused about, when the final balance would be due. So we would have to pay the balance 12 weeks before the departure date.. Any payments from guests would then be taken whenever we choose to close the gift list and they would refund that amount of money back to us. Any overpayments mean they would send you holiday vouchers to use against another holiday in the future.
A good idea but I don't know if we can afford to pay the whole thing ourselves initially. We want to go on honeymoon as soon as we can after the wedding so it seems a bit off asking guests to give monetary donations 3 months before our wedding :/
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
I've never heard of this. It's a good idea as long as they don't charge you for it like the honey moon fund sites. Wish I had known of this. That way people could have paid straight in.
That's really good. WIll be interesting how they refund you the money if you go over. I'm guessing it will be in vouchers or some kind of credit towards another holdiay with them.
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorFlossie
Yeah it says the money will be refunded back to you once you've got all the donations from your guests, but if they have over paid the amount then they will give the rest back to you in holiday vouchers for a future holiday. It's a good idea but I'm just not sure about the timings, like I said above, seems a bit off asking people to give money three months before you get married lol. Not sure we will be able to afford to pay it all off ourselves initially :/
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
Yeah, maybe four weeks before departure. It's not like you can pay it before hand and have people pay it in after as you will only get it back in vouchers. If it was cash back it might be doable. Did that make sense?
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorFlossie
Ahh no they will refund you the actual money. They only give you vouchers if you end up with more money donated than the honeymoon actually costs.
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorGlitterfairy
Ahhhh I see, I get it now. My brain is not working at the mo.
Our wedding day - 6 October 2012
CommentAuthorFlossie
edited
Haha no worries it took me a while to get my head around it! It's a good idea in principle but it's just being able to afford to pay it off yourself initially.. I know you would get some or all of the money refunded at some point, but just not sure we can afford to pay out so much 3 months before the wedding.. as that's around the point when most other things will need to be paid for as well. Don't want to put all that pressure on ourselves!
I guess we can see how the saving goes over this year and decide a bit later on what we want to do.
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorAprilS61
It's a good idea especially if it's free.
It would be no good for us as we can't pay for honeymoon ourselves. Although, as we're hoping to leave just under 4 months after the wedding it would be ok timings wise as the 12 weeks before is after our wedding date, so guests could actually donate before the cut off. If we had a more feasible timescale like yours we'd probably think about doing it. X
Mr & Mrs Swan 04/04/15
CommentAuthorFlossie
That's the thing.. We'd like to go a couple of weeks after the wedding, so we would have to pay the balance ourselves and then get the money back, just don't think we can afford to do that. So guess we'd have to wait about 4 months after the wedding to go on honeymoon, which we don't really want to do :/ hmmm.
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorAprilS61
If you're wanting to straight after I would probably just save what you can, try and get some interest built on it and maybe see what you get as donations then book it and take off ASAP! that's pretty much what were doing lol x
Mr & Mrs Swan 04/04/15
CommentAuthorFlossie
True but then we want something booked as early as possible so we can look forward to it and know that we have definite plans in place, rather than just wait and see what happens to be around at that time if you what I mean.
Might talk to my mum about it Saturday, I know she was wanting to pay for our entire honeymoon so maybe she will lend us the money so we can pay the balance off 12 weeks before we go, then we can pay her back using any donations we receive when we get back... x
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorAprilS61
That's a food idea :) if she's offering you should take her up on it. Or at least compromise (I remember you saying you'd feel bad as you want an expensive honeymoon like us) and let her pay half if that's a bit more likely?
It's not all bad though leaving it later, the thing that keeps me sane about having to wait is that we can delay the post-wedding blues as well still have something to look forward to :) x
Mr & Mrs Swan 04/04/15
CommentAuthorFlossie
She's already being so generous I couldn't let her pay for the whole honeymoon as well, particularly when we're probably looking at least £3k in total (will probably be more like £4-5k in reality lol). We definitely want to contribute as much as we possibly can either with our own savings or donations from guests!
Will get her opinion/thoughts and might have a clearer idea then.
All we can do for now is just to continue to save as much as possible - who knows, we might end up with more than we thought and be able to pay it off ourselves before we go :) x
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorAH86
Ours isn't through V but through a similar type set up and our list closes 2 days after our wedding. We paid in full 12 weeks before (we asked close friends and family politely if they would mind contributing early) and then any money that goes in from now we receive back the money when we return from our honeymoon xx
Friday 10th April 2015
Marrying my best friend
Not long now :D
CommentAuthorFlossie
Did they mind contributing early AH? I just wouldn't know how to even broach the subject.. just feels really cheeky! x
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorInDreamland
This sounds like a great idea.
Married the love of my life on Saturday 11th May 2013 xxx
Had our dream perfect honeymoon in Hawaii!
CommentAuthorlala "mod" bunni
When we asked for money as gifts we said we would use it to do extras while on honeymoon ..which we did ... went went whale watching , had beautiful special meal, went on trip into a volcano , which also meant when we sent ty cards we could list the things we did to the people who kindly gave us money
We would need to put the money towards the actual honeymoon, I dont know whether we would want to do any extras, the honeymoon itself is going to cost enough!
Happily married
18th June 2016
xx
CommentAuthorVictoriaL46
We looked into the virgin gift list but dont qualify as we went through an agent :( OHs aunt has already offered to pay for a Dolphin Swim in the Keys and best mans family are covering the accomodation. :)
Met in Nov 2005
Engaged 13th June 2013
Becomes Mrs Stewart on 10th Aug 2015 Honeymoon in Florida!
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