Our Guide to Gift Payments using PayPal

With Buy Our Honeymoon, you can link your honeymoon registry to a PayPal account, so that your guests can pay for their gifts using a credit card. Here’s our guide to setting this up.

PayPal typically charges 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction, deducted from the amount you receive.

Cross-border payments may have higher fees. PayPal’s fees always apply to payments initiated through third-party sites such as ours.

Any gifts paid into your account are available to you immediately.

Don’t forget to link your account.

Once you’ve set up your PayPal account, sign into your Buy Our Honeymoon account and enter your PayPal email address into the Gift Payments section. We’ll then be able to integrate PayPal payments into your honeymoon registry.

But for most couples, we recommend setting up card payments by Stripe instead of card payments through PayPal.

Collecting payments through Stripe is now open to couples in 17 different countries, including the USA. Your guests making payment can be based anywhere in the world.

PayPal is a good choice if you need immediate access to funds as soon as they’re paid — Stripe payments take a few days to clear — or if you need to create a balance in a different currency fron your own. Otherwise, Stripe is almost certainly the better option, particularly if you have guests in a different country.

Stripe’s easier for you to set up, and much easier for guests to make payment. Find out more.

  1. Create your PayPal account and confirm your email address

    To create a PayPal account, go to www.paypal.com and click Sign up to create a Personal account. Choose your country of residence and enter your email address and a password. On the next screen. you’ll need to fill in a few personal details.

    This will have set up what PayPal used to call a Premier account — meaning that although it’s an account for personal use, you can nonetheless accept credit or debit card payments into it.

    As soon as your account is created, PayPal will send you a welcome email message containing a link to activate your account. It’s very important that you use this to confirm to PayPal that the email address you used to sign up is really yours.

    If you don’t receive this email, check your spam folder in case it’s there. You can log into your PayPal account to re-send it at any time.

  2. Link your PayPal account to your bank account

    The best way to access the gifts paid into your PayPal account is to link it to an ordinary bank account. You can then transfer funds as they come in.

    To set this up, log into your PayPal account and click Wallet in the blue bar at the top of the screen. Then click to add a bank account and fill in the form.

    Adding your bank account is also a key step towards getting Verified.

  3. Get Verified and lift your receiving and withdrawal limits

    For legal and security purposes, PayPal set initial limits on the amount of money you can receive into your PayPal account, and the amount of money you can transfer into your bank account. To be able to lift these limits, you must verify that your account is really yours. To get verified status, you may also need to provide some additional personal information.

    First, log into your PayPal account and click Wallet. Then, click to confirm your bank account and follow the instructions provided.

    Then, click Summary in the blue bar at the top, and click the View your account limits link towards the bottom of the screen.

    This will bring up a screen showing your current limits, with the option to lift each of them. We strongly recommend lifting your receiving and withdrawal limits. Select the checkboxes for these and click the Lift limits button. PayPal will then guide you through what you have to do.

  4. Transfer funds to your bank account

    To transfer your honeymoon gifts to your bank account, log into your PayPal account and click Withdraw money in the panel showing your PayPal balance.

    You can then enter the amount you’d like to transfer. It can take a few days for these funds to arrive in your account, so we’d suggest making a transfer around a week before your wedding and another one after the big day.

    Of course, this money is yours from the moment it’s given, so it’s up to you how many transfers you make: you are in control.

Upgrading an older PayPal account

For your guests to be able to use a credit or debit card to pay you through PayPal, you’ll need to have a “Premier” account. This is the standard for newly-created accounts, but older accounts may still have “Personal” status. It costs nothing to upgrade your account. To do this:

  1. Log into your existing PayPal account, and click Upgrade just under your name towards the top of the page.
  2. A screen will appear listing the advantages of a business account. Don't panic, for now this is correct! Click the Upgrade account button.
  3. You can now choose between a Premier Account and a Business Account. Select Premier Account and click the Continue button.

Don’t get phished!

Beware of phishing — fraudulent emails, pretending to be from PayPal, that trick you into revealing your login details to a third party, who can then log into your real account and hijack it.

From time to time, PayPal will send you legitimate emails, including the email to confirm your email address when you first open an account. Whenever you get an email about your PayPal account, the safest and easiest course of action is to open a new browser window, type www.paypal.com, and log in to your PayPal account directly. Do not click on any link in an email that requests personal information.

PayPal have further information on how to spot a phishing email.

Check out our other gift payment options

If you’d like to combine PayPal payments with card payments via Stripe, you can do so using PayPal.Me — an alternative way to transfer funds from one PayPal account to another, that’s usually exempt from PayPal’s processing fees.

With Buy Our Honeymoon, you have complete freedom to manage your gift payments in whatever way suits you best. We don’t hold your funds, and we don’t charge a commission on the gifts you’re given. Here’s our guide to the different options available.

We’re here to help

If you ever have any queries or need assistance, we’re only an email away.

Contact us