The online battle for brides is getting more heated.

Five major national retailers, including Crate & Barrel and Neiman Marcus Group, have signed deals with a new wedding-registry Internet site, creating the largest online assembly of registries from multiple big-name stores.

The site, dellajames.com, is expected to launch this week and will be backed by a glitzy $4 million national print and online advertising campaign. While the Internet wedding-registry field is crowded already, WeddingChannel.com's introduction is noteworthy because the site has secured contracts with a group of high-profile retailers that will share their existing registries with the site, allowing wedding guests to purchase gifts directly online from a variety of popular sources.

In addition to Neiman Marcus and Crate & Barrel, which is controlled by Germany's Otto Versand, the WeddingChannel.com site will gather registries from Williams-Sonoma, Dillard's, sporting-goods company Recreational Equipment and other regional stores such as Gump's in San Francisco. The site gets a percentage of every purchase made through its service, but consumers pay no fee. Every time a guest makes a purchase, be it online or in a bricks-and-mortar store, the computer systems that track the registries are automatically updated.

Given the growing appetite for electronic commerce, the Internet and the $45 billion-a-year U.S. bridal retail business make powerful partners. Federated Department Stores recently bought a 20% stake in WeddingChannel.com. Other sites, including theknot.com and WeddingNetwork.com, also have deals with smaller retail players in the bridal business.

Like bridal magazines, these sites also are vying for wedding-related advertising. Ultimately, the prevailing sites are likely to be those boasting the strongest brand recognition, retail ties and guest traffic to their Web pages.

Named after characters in O. Henry's story "The Gift of the Magi," Della & James was co-founded by two women at Stanford's Graduate School of Business who entered a business plan for the site in a competition. One judge, who was an associate with venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was so impressed he persuaded the firm to back the project, leading the two women, Jessica DiLullo and Jenny Lefcourt, to drop out of school and start the company.

WeddingChannel.com may have an edge over rivals with the diversity of its retail partners, most of which have signed short-term exclusivity deals for about a year with the site. Couples can thus register with a variety of stores and then track their registries in one location, as well as develop personal wedding Web pages with event information. In return for promoting its partner retailers' goods, WeddingChannel.com gains instant access to some 350,000 brides who register with these stores annually.

Says WeddingChannel.com Chief Executive Rebecca Patton: "This creates one place where the modern couple can communicate everything about their wedding." Moreover, the retailers will encourage brides and grooms to go online with WeddingChannel.com through in-store advertising, mailings and other marketing.

"We'll promote the site with our customers in all the ways that we do," says Robert Smith, co-CEO of Neiman Marcus. That includes touting Della & James in its popular, glossy "The Book" catalog as well as in billing statements for its signature credit card. Outdoor-gear company REI, meanwhile, will include links to dellajames.com throughout its own popular Web site.

Initially, many traditional retailers were reluctant to turn over their registries and give a cut of revenues to third-party sites where competitors' goods are sold. And some of the retailers, such as Williams-Sonoma, will continue to run their own online registry sites too. But the idea of a group-registry site is catching on.

"To me, it's the shopping-center model," says Neiman Marcus's Mr. Smith. "If we open a new store, we want to be around other retailers because it drives traffic."