The New York Times

Admit it. You’ve sometimes grumbled after buying a nice wedding gift, only to see the couple split up a year or two later.

Well, now you can hedge your bets, at a new Web site called — what else — WeddingGiftRefund.com.

The brainchild of Terry Smith, 72, and his 36-year-old son, Ty, the site works like this. When you buy a wedding gift, you register on the Web site and upload an image of your receipt (you can also mail in the hard copy). You pay a fee of 8 percent of the purchase price. (For a $100 gift, that’s $8.) You dance happily at the wedding and leave your gift on the table. And then, you wait.

If the couple’s union endures, everyone’s happy — and you’re out a few dollars. If the marriage sours, however, and the couple divorces within 36 months, you can notify WeddingGiftRefund.com and get your purchase price back. (You need to provide the city, county and state of the divorce filing, so Mr. Smith can verify the divorce through public records.)

Mr. Smith, a widower, said he had nothing against marriage. In fact, he said, he prefers that they last (that way, he gets to keep more fees from his Web site). “We want all marriages to work,” he said. But he said he had noticed that people tend to grumble about the money they spent on gifts when marriages fall apart a year or two after the wedding. “A lot of people get upset,” he said. “They feel like they’re throwing money down the drain.”

Mr. Smith is retired, and his son, a former refinancing specialist, started kicking around the idea of a gift refund site, and looked at online wedding etiquette sites for insight. They found a lot of anger, out there in cyberspace, about wedding gifts. “There is a market for it,” he said of the refund site.

The idea struck me as amusing, but isn’t it a bit of a hassle for a relatively small amount of money? Things happen in life, after all. And in the scheme of things, what’s one wedding gift? If you’re worried about the money so much, why not just buy an inexpensive knickknack? (Or better yet, re-gift one that you didn’t like?) What’s next: Refunds for baby gifts, if the child turns out to be a juvenile delinquent?

Mr. Smith argued that many people don’t want to appear to be skimping on a gift for a family member or friend, even if they have doubts about a couple’s ability to stay committed. And depending on your age, you can go to a lot of weddings around the same period of time, so the spending can add up. Most couples list their wants on online registries these days, he said, so wedding guests are sort of captive on price. “Even little things are fairly expensive,” he said.

And to those who feel that buying a chance for a refund is, in effect, betting against the marriage? “People say with some — not all weddings, but some — you just have a gut feeling, ‘This is not going to work,’” Mr. Smith responded.

The Web site just started in March so it hasn’t seen much traffic yet, but Mr. Smith said the marketing was just beginning. He set a maximum eligible gift at $500, to avoid some sort of Kardashian-scale refund. (You can register a more expensive gift, but the most you can get back is $500.) And the receipt must be registered within one week after the nuptials.

And yes, the refund site is available for gay marriages and divorces, too — as long as the wedding occurred in a state that recognizes such unions. (It doesn’t cover annulments, though.)

Would you pay an upfront fee to secure a refund for a wedding gift?