How to Set Up a Wedding Gift Registry with M-Pesa

You’ve found your person, set the date, and started planning the details. Then someone asks: “What gifts do you need?” And the honest answer is — not another set of sufurias.

---

Wedding gift-giving in Kenya has changed. Guests know it, couples know it, and anyone who has attended a wedding in the last few years has seen it firsthand: the gift table is smaller, the envelopes are thicker, and the MC is reading out an M-Pesa number every twenty minutes.

The shift toward cash gifts is real and it’s practical. But “send money to this number” is not a registry — it’s a prayer. You have no visibility into what came in, no way for guests to contribute toward something specific, and no record when it’s time to write thank-you notes.

A proper M-Pesa wedding gift registry in Kenya solves all of that. Here’s how gift-giving is evolving in Kenya, why M-Pesa makes it work for everyone, and how to set one up on Harusi Hub in under an hour.

How Gift-Giving Has Evolved in Kenya

Walk into any Kenyan wedding reception in the 1990s and the gift table was piled high — wrapped boxes of crockery, blankets, sufurias, cutlery, and occasionally a goat. Guests brought what they could afford to carry.

Today, that table is almost gone. Several shifts have driven the change:

Couples are older when they marry. The average Kenyan couple getting married today has already furnished a home, built a kitchen, and owns more cups than they need. Physical household gifts no longer make sense.

Chamas and groups give together. Rather than individuals buying separate small items, workmates, chamas, and family groups now pool contributions to give something meaningful — and digital transfers make that effortless.

M-Pesa normalized sending money. Once M-Pesa made instant transfers as easy as sending a text message, the stigma around giving cash disappeared. Money is no longer a “lazy gift” — it’s the most practical one.

Safaricom even created an official Wedding Fund Paybill category specifically for this purpose, allowing couples to apply for a short-term Paybill number dedicated to collecting wedding contributions. With over 37.9 million active monthly M-Pesa users in Kenya as of mid-2025, the infrastructure for digital wedding gifting is already in every guest’s pocket.

The gap that remains is structure. Guests want to know what they’re contributing toward. Couples want to track what they’ve received. That’s what a proper M-Pesa registry delivers.

Why a Wedding Gift Registry Works Better Than “Just Send to This Number”

Most Kenyan couples collect wedding contributions by sharing a personal M-Pesa number or a WhatsApp group where people send screenshots. It works — but barely.

Here’s what gets lost:

• No tracking. You’re reconciling screenshots and Mpesa statements at midnight the week before your wedding.
• No purpose. Guests don’t know if they’re contributing toward a honeymoon, furniture, or just the general fund.
• No receipts. Saying “thank you” later means trying to remember who gave what, which is impossible.
• No transparency. Duplicate payments, wrong amounts, and unclaimed contributions slip through with no system to catch them.

A structured registry fixes every one of these problems. Guests pick what they want to contribute toward, make their M-Pesa payment, and enter their transaction reference. You verify it from your dashboard. The total updates in real time.

If you’re already tracking your wedding budget carefully, a registry gives you the same discipline on the income side.

What the Harusi Hub Registry Includes

Harusi Hub’s gift registry is built around two types of items — and you can use both at the same time.

Products

Physical gifts from stores — or custom items you add yourself. Guests can contribute money toward a product, or reserve it to purchase themselves. If you want a specific blender, a set of Egyptian cotton sheets, or a coffee machine, list it as a product and guests can contribute toward it directly.

Cash Funds

Monetary goals for anything you choose: a honeymoon in Zanzibar, a house deposit, a savings fund, a car. Guests contribute any amount, and the fund shows real-time progress toward your target.

You can mix both types on the same registry page. Guests browse, choose what resonates, and contribute. It’s organized, it’s purposeful, and it looks far more considered than a phone number on a card. The Adding Registry Products guide shows you exactly how to build out your item list.

How to Set Up Your M-Pesa Gift Registry on Harusi Hub

Setting up your registry takes less time than you’d expect. The full walkthrough is in the Set Up Your Gift Registry guide, but here’s the overview.

Step 1: Open the Registry Hub

From your Harusi Hub dashboard, navigate to Registry in the left sidebar. This opens your Registry Hub — the central page for managing everything.

Step 2: Configure your registry page

At the top of the hub, you’ll find Page Settings. Give your registry page a title that guests will see on your wedding website, and toggle visibility on so it appears in your site navigation. Click Preview to see exactly what guests will see.

Step 3: Add your items

Go to Products and browse the catalog of partner stores, or add custom items manually. For cash funds, go to Funds and create goals with a name, description, and target amount. Your registry page will automatically show progress bars for each item.

Step 4: Customize the page

Head to your website editor, click Registry in the pages list, and add content blocks — a welcome message for guests, instructions for contributing, or any notes you want to include. The Customize Your Registry Page guide covers this in detail.

Step 5: Configure M-Pesa settings

In the Registry Hub, find M-Pesa Settings and enter your M-Pesa details. This is the number guests will send their contribution payments to.

That’s it. Your registry is live on your wedding website.

How Guests Contribute via M-Pesa

This is the part your guests will thank you for — it’s genuinely simple, and it requires no app, no account, and no technical knowledge.

1. Guest visits your wedding website and taps the Registry link.
2. Guest browses your items and picks what they want to contribute toward.
3. Guest enters their name, phone number, and contribution amount.
4. Guest opens M-Pesa on their phone and sends the payment to your M-Pesa number.
5. Guest enters their M-Pesa transaction reference and an optional message for you.
6. The contribution appears in your dashboard for verification.

The full contribution flow — from the guest’s perspective — is covered in the Track Contributions guide.

How You Verify and Track Contributions

Once contributions come in, you verify them from the Contributions tab in your registry dashboard. Each pending contribution shows the contributor’s name, phone number, amount, item or fund name, and M-Pesa reference.

To verify:

1. Open the contribution.
2. Cross-check the M-Pesa reference against your M-Pesa statement.
3. Click Verify to approve it.

Harusi Hub flags duplicate M-Pesa references automatically — if someone accidentally submits the same reference twice, you’ll see a warning before you verify. Verified contributions update the fund or product progress in real time.

When you’re ready to write thank-you messages, export the full contributions list as a CSV with one click. Every contributor’s name, phone number, amount, item, and message — all in one file. No more scrambling through screenshots the week after the wedding.

Real Scenarios: Who Benefits Most

The couple already fully set up at home. Amina and Kwame have lived together for two years. They don’t need plates or pillows. They want to save for a house deposit. They create a single cash fund with a KES 500,000 target and share it with guests. Family members who can’t attend send their contribution from wherever they are. The morning after the wedding, Amina checks the dashboard and sees exactly how much came in.

The couple with guests across the country. Njoki and Brian have family in Kisumu, Mombasa, Eldoret, and Nairobi — and cousins abroad. A physical wedding gift table only works for guests who show up. With an M-Pesa registry, a relative in Mombasa can contribute toward the honeymoon fund from their phone the night before the wedding. No envelope, no errand, no missed contribution.

The couple who wants physical gifts but needs tracking. Aisha and David want a kitchen upgrade — a specific stand mixer, a blender, and a set of good pots. They add these as products on their registry. Guests who want to give something tangible can contribute toward whichever item they choose, and the couple sees exactly what’s been funded.

Share Your Registry Link

Your registry is part of your wedding website on Harusi Hub. Share your wedding website link — one URL that includes your love story, RSVP, schedule, and registry — and guests navigate to the registry from there.

For guests who might miss the website link, you can include a note in your invitation: “Contributions welcome via our registry at harusihub.com/your-names.” It’s cleaner than printing a phone number, and it gives guests the context that a bare M-Pesa number never provides.

If you’re still thinking through how to fund your wedding or want to understand how the registry fits into your overall planning, the all-in-one wedding planning overview covers how everything connects.

Once your registry is live, learn how to track every contribution and gift — M-Pesa, cash, and bank transfers — so nothing slips through after the wedding. And for sharing your registry link alongside all your other wedding details, see how to share your wedding details with one link.

And don’t forget: a registry link is only as useful as the people who see it. Pair it with digital invitations so every guest gets the link directly — no forwarded screenshots required.