Registering for Gifts

As you can tell, Kevin and I did a lot of wedding-related stuff last weekend. One of the strangest and most fun things we did was registering for wedding gifts.

We started at Crate and Barrel. We've received several sets of glassware from them as gifts over the years. I love that they sell everything separately, so we can easily replace broken glasses. I wanted to have the same flexibility with plates and flatware, so we went there looking for those things. We also found some small kitchen tools that we never quite got around to buying for ourselves.

Setting up the registry at Crate and Barrel was really easy. A lady gave us a scanner and showed us how to use it. There were kiosks set up throughout the store where we could use the scanner to set up our registry once we were done "shopping". I really appreciated the hands-off approach, because that's how I prefer to shop.

After Crate and Barrel we went to Macy's where there's a bigger selection and some higher quality products. The experience was really different there, as we were assigned an associate who helped us set up the registry. I always find this annoying because I'd mostly rather not be forced to interact with someone when I'm shopping. It didn't help that he was never actually around when we had questions, so the whole thing seemed a little silly.

Macy's has a ton of programs that we didn't sign up for because they made me feel greedy. For example, you can link a Macy's credit card to your account. Then 10% of every gift purchased through the registry comes back to you as cash. There are also a variety of bonus gifts that can be added on when you hit a goal amount in a certain brand. The whole thing made me feel vaguely uncomfortable, and we tried to avoid it. But we did end up adding a set of pots and pans that, if bought at full price, will result in a bonus frying pan. So we'll see what happens with that.

We're also unsure about how to add a few things to the registry. We could always use more serving dishes and utensils, but we don't have strong opinions about what those look like. In fact, we'd prefer an eclectic collection that represents our families and friends as much as ourselves. Likewise with artwork. It would be cool to have a few things to hang on the wall or put on a shelf, but we'd almost prefer for those to reflect the people we know and love rather than ourselves. Most of the chotchkies we already own are reminiscent of specific people, like Kevin's grandmother's lighthouse collection, or the angel I received as a gift from the family I stayed with in Mexico. These are things we'd never buy for ourselves, but they have a lot of meaning because of where they came from.

Aside from these two registries, we're also in the process of creating a honeymoon registry. The idea behind these is that someone can pay for a meal or a night in a hotel during your honeymoon. Since Kevin and I already have so much of the home stuff we need, this seems perfect for us. We still need to figure out some of the details before we can pull that together, but we have time. I don't think the registries need to be completely done until the invitations go out.