Wedding Registry Adventures

Although the wedding is 7 1/2 months away, we registered for gifts last week. I had an idea about registering being a long, involved process but was nonetheless surprised at how exhausting it in fact was. We registered at 3 home stores and Erik might be registering at Home Depot — I opted not to go on that registering extravaganza. We had some interesting observations at the 3 stores where we are registered. I'm writing my thoughts on these not to encourage people to buy gifts (don't want to be tacky) but just to share our experience. It's a touchy subject—how to get the word out there where one is registered—but this is by no means a sales pitch.

Store #1: Crate & Barrel
By far the easiest registering experience. Their scanner worked wonderfully and was highly intuitive. It was easy to enter in quantities and remove items. The salespeople were helpful but gave us our space. There were some items we wanted that they did not have in the store and so we went online later to edit our registry. Their website registry editing process was super easy as well. C & B far surpassed the other stores.

Store #2: Macy's
Next we went to Macy's. Our main goal for Macy's was to get the formal china. The thing about Macy's that was different was that we had to meet in a back room (the Registry area) with a woman who was not extremely adept at working on computers to set up our Registry. [At C&B we scanned everything, placed the scanner on a reader and then entered the information in ourselves via a touchscreen.] Another thing about Macy's that was a little off-putting was the store wanting our guest list to send them little cards that say we are registered there. In the same breath the woman talked about how we can't put our registry information on the invitations because that would be tacky. . . right and giving our loved ones' addresses would be okay and completely acceptable. Also, I specifically checked the box on the form not to get promotions in my email and, what do you know, I have gotten 5 since we registered. I'm not happy with Macy's right now.

The one good thing about going to Macy's was finally seeing the china in person. We went to Macy's with a certain pattern in mind but saw a few that we liked much better. Surprisingly enough, Erik and I disagreed on the pattern. He wanted a whimsical bow pattern to match our wedding flutes, dessert serving pieces, etc. (see future post), and I wanted something classic and timeless.

Here's Erik admiring his choice of Kate Spade's Belle Boulevard (scanner in hand):



Here's the one we went with (Vera Wang Grosgrain):


Store #3: Bed Bath & Beyond
Finally at around 7pm we made it to BBB—only to find that we had basically wasted our time at Macy's. Not sure if you guys know this (we didn't), but BBB has fine china. They had our pattern for a little cheaper and you can use those 20% coupons you always get in the mail! AND, though this is slightly obvious, their prices on kitchen electronics and kitchenware are much better as well! And it's the same stuff!

The one thing that was really, really annoying about BBB was the woman in charge of the registry. She kept us in her office for 30+ minutes explaining how to register and what we should register for and the benefits of a standing mixer (which we did not register for). Then, as though that wasn't annoying enough, proceeded to register for the fine china with us — like we couldn't do it ourselves. We were like, "Please get away from us. This is our last store and you are preventing us from eating dinner." We are still talking about this woman and how annoying she was. How young did we look?! Also, she offered us notepads of "inserts" for shower invitations that we could put our BBB registry number on. Are these people insane? I worry about the poor brides- and grooms-to-be that fall for this crap and then offend a bunch of their guests.

Anyway, despite annoying sales ladies, aching feet, and hunger, registering was quite fun. We didn't have any major disagreements about styles of things (except for the china). All in all, it was very successful. I do think that Erik had more fun than me though—he was in control of the scanner.

Here's a picture of us at the end of the night: