10 fun facts about us

We were delighted to receive an invitation last week to join Style Me Pretty’s Little Black Book of hand-picked wedding vendors.  As part of the screening process we were asked to provide ten facts about us and our company.  We thought it might be fun to post them here too!

1. Buy Our Honeymoon is run by Shelley and Andrew Green — and we originally set up the site in 2005 for use at our own wedding.  We’d lived with each other before taking the plunge, so we already had all the housewares traditionally given as gifts, and very little room in our flat for any more.  The honeymoon registry concept hadn’t really made it across the pond to the UK at that point, and since Andrew had been a web developer since 1996, we decided to create it all completely from scratch.
2. Our honeymoon was a three-week, 3000-mile road trip across Florida and the Deep South.  We were amazed at the generosity of our family and friends, and we can honestly say that they all helped us to kick-start our marriage with the most amazing honeymoon we could possibly have dreamed of.  It sounds like marketing flannel, but it’s absolutely the truth: those memories are far more valuable to us than physical gifts ever could have been.
3. It was only after the birth of our daughter, Zoë, that we decided to further develop the site for other couples to use.  Some friends-of-friends really wanted to have a registry for their honeymoon to Las Vegas, so a lot of our initial work was to expand on what we’d done, for them.  Their enthusiasm, and the great response from their family and friends, really convinced us that the service might have legs.
4. Shelley’s dad was born and grew up in West Virginia, and Shelley lived there too when she was a toddler.  She’s told that, for a while, she talked with an American accent, but lost it when she moved back to London, aged four.
5. Andrew’s father was born in 1911 and, as a young man, worked as a footman to the former Lord Saye and Sele at Broughton Castle, and then as a butler to the Courage family (at the time, owners of a large brewery here in the UK).  Despite this, neither of us have ever watched Downton Abbey.
6. To celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, we totally plan to repeat our honeymoon — but of course taking the girls with us (our second daughter, Ava, is now nearly two).  We can’t be sure which one of us is the most excited about this.
7. We called the site “Buy Our Honeymoon” because we knew that our family and friends would find it amusing (we were very careful to make sure everyone knew we really, really didn’t expect gifts).  In developing the business, we’ve found that the name is helpful for couples in understanding the concept — but most couples use one of the other URLs we offer for their actual registry.  Most guests never see those words at all!
8. We’ve been shortlisted as the UK’s Best Wedding Gift List in the annual Wedding Ideas magazine awards for three years running now, alongside giant High Street retailers and household names.  We’re hugely proud of this, and very, very grateful for the support our customers have shown us.
9. We’re always amazed by the creativity and adventure shown by couples using the site.  One of our earliest couples spent part of their honeymoon on an expedition to Antarctica!  Others have included fantastic gifts on their registries, including his-and-hers tattoos in Thailand, a drive through Death Valley, or scorpion kebabs from the night market in Beijing.
10. Until about a year ago, our offices (and before that, our home too) were in-and-below an old Victorian shop in Greenwich, just a stone’s throw from the Thames and about a hundred yards east of the meridian. Just before we moved in, some scenes from the Mike Leigh film All Or Nothing were filmed there.  The movie itself came out after we’d settled in, so it was very bizarre to see our home (looking quite different, but clearly recognisable) on the big screen!

Our listing will appear in the Little Black Book soon! Thanks so much to Kristina and the team at Style Me Pretty!