Chicago Wedding and Bridal Blog

The time has come for my fiance and I to start our wedding (bridal) gift registry. (our wedding is only 4.5 months away now) We are in our mid 30’s and both own our own places to live so creating our wedding registry is a lot more complicated than it would be for 2 people who lived at home with their parents and didn’t own anything yet. It is also a significant part of the process of building our lives together since the wedding gift registry may be the first time you have a reason to talk about things like furniture, housewares and style together. It also sets the tone for future purchases since price is always debatable and this is the first foray into that area too.  

The wedding gift registry used to be more of a Bridal Gift Registry as women were the ones who would be using all these household appliances and cooking utensils in the home. Girls would go pick out what they liked and the men really didn’t give a hoot about what anything looked like style-wise in the home unless they were paying for it. We went to a Crate & Barrel Registry event last Sunday morning in Oak Brook and plan on visiting Macy’s Wedding Gift Registry department on State Street downtown again on Saturday.

Times sure have changed and men are fully integrated into this wedding gift registry process now. Steve and I have both gone to Macy’s and Crate & Barrel where registered and he might is more interested in the kitchen items than I am, since he is a better cook and knows that good quality kitchen tools will lead to better cooking and better food! Many of the men at Crate & Barrel with their fiance’s were very interested in all the kitchen gadgets and choosing everything. Steve was not the only one!

The items he was specifically interested in adding to the gift registry were beer glasses, brandy glasses, a magnetic grill light, wusthof knives, pizza making accessories, giant carving cutting boards and bodum no-sweat glasses.  I was more interested in the things I never bought because I never really had a reason to do large quantity family party cooking before. Things like a dutch oven, a turkey roaster, a coffee carafe, kitchen aid mix master, covered casserole dish, a meat thermometer, china storage cases and textiles like tablecloths and napkins. I decided no vases or candles since I have already indulged in many of those and have plenty.

We were both baffled by choosing the silverware and crystal glassware. (update: it’s finally chosen, see next post) There are millions of designs and patterns and it’s near impossible to see what is supposed to go with the vintage Noritake china I have. I feel like many glassware patterns remind me of specific decades and I don’t want to be stuck in any of them. (hello 90’s cut crystal petal facets at the bottom of the glass) I really want all the things we register for and buy to look timeless. I don’t want to feel like that was so 2009 when I look at it in 2030. (and the few etched leaf pattern glasses I have from the china I inherited are in a style that is no longer produced)

Silver plate flatware is ridiculously expensive ($500 for a 5 piece place setting!!) so I won’t be able to get something like my mom has. Regular stainless flatware is hard to choose also because most patterns look like every day silverware and not fancy enough to go with China and others are overly elaborate/scrolled/gaudy. There is little to choose from in between. I am leaning toward simple stainless silverware with a beaded edge but I won’t be completely sure until we take one of our china plates over to Macy’s to look at things next to it.

The last few items we still need to figure out about the registry are bedding, towels and if we should register for any pots/pans (since we both have sets, his is old oneida non-stick kohl’s brand mine is cheap IKEA 360) and if we should add any small furniture things? (we need a nightstand since he only has 1 we found an old nightstand to use temporarily from his bedroom set he had as a kid, but we still need a lamp for it) We figure Macy’s is a good place for these things. We also figure beige/gold will be the color for the bedding since all 3 of our cats are near that color and it will show less cat hair. (just being practical)

Picking towels are more of an issue since we live in different places now and have a goal of buying a house within a few years. We don’t have any idea of what colors that imaginary house may have in it’s bathroom, so picking colors there will be tough. I like all shades of blues and greens mixed together in a gradient range of colors in a white bathroom. Steve likes dark colors in beige earthy bathrooms. So we may have no idea how to consolidate that. At least the Macy’s sales person was honest that nobody registers for Martha Stewart’s line since it’s cheap crap that falls apart. They recommended Charter Club or Lauren towels and bedding. I believe them, Martha’s line feels like paper and I’d like things to last a long time. (we went with aqua and brown, the best of both worlds)

All this discussion of “stuff” has prompted a theory about what a wedding and gift  registry is for and what the expectations are from it. I really think the registry is for things you don’t already have or could not really afford on your own. Not the little nickel and dime stuff you can get at Target for $5 - $20. That isn’t a problem for us to afford, it’s the big stuff that worries us when it comes to $, so that is where the help is most needed and appreciated.  Plus we both come to the table with a whole house of stuff, so if it’s not on the registry we may not need it because we already have it. (examples: daily glassware, silverware, & plates as well as many kitchen necessities, bakeware, vases, candles, cookbooks (we have gotten like 10 recently) a blender, 2 toasters, a toaster oven, many pots and pans, a griddle, a George foreman grill, a full size grill, 2 dvd players, electric can opener, computer related stuff and a whole bunch of other stuff) 

Aside from the type of things people register for, some people assume they will get a certain amount of $ in gifts from every person depending on how much they spend on the reception per person. These two amounts are totally unrelated. If we spend $100 per person on the reception (very common price) we know we won’t get $100 in gifts back from each person. People buy what they want and what they can afford. It is just not a science and certainly it’s rude to speculate and ask for things like that. And I don’t want my wedding to be about the numbers like that anyway. It’s just supposed to be a party and I hope people have a good time, that’s it.

A lot of the girls I have talked to have all had strategies to get the most out of your registry, and that could be a post in and of itself. I don’t have any strategy to get people to buy more or buy specific things or trade in gifts for cash returns or anything. (Crate & Barrel gives cash rather than store credits for returned registry gifts, some people register for $50 items, return them all and then buy a sofa with the cash. I can’t bring myself to do that) 

I have a range of stuff out there on the gift registry list and if anyone buys anything for us it is extremely generous of them and well appreciated. I can’t get upset when we get 50% random gifts that we didn’t register for nor can we use or return. (all my friends have had this happen) People will always do this and have already started with the engagement gifts this way (magic bullet blender anyone? it works great, but how often do you blend things?)  Other odd gifts that I have seen at other showers have been cross-stitched kleenex box covers and old Christmas ornaments. Not really practical?

I really like vintage aqua pyrex and jadeite glassware things but since I can’t really register for those things and they’re pretty specific I won’t mention them at all. It’s best that I leave that to my own Kane County fairgrounds flea market shopping anyway. (sometimes I don’t even know what I am looking for with vintage) Luckily we chose mostly simple styles that all blend together. Steve keeps asking if everything has to match? I don’t think he realizes that isn’t possible even if you buy it all from the same store. I run an eclectic household and hopefully he is ok with that. (seems like he is, no complaints yet)

So, I am going into this wedding registry process with a grain of salt and I am picking out things we will probably buy for our new house even if people don’t buy them for us as gifts. It’s stuff that is practical and sensible and will get used a lot over the years. (no specialty gadgets like panini presses, cappuccino machines or waffle makers, they just take up space and don’t get used much) And we get 10% off the remaining items at Macy’s and Crate & Barrel after the wedding to help with that too. 

So, my advice if you have a wedding to attend is to see what you can find on the registry or get a gift certificate for that store. (hey, that’s really easy too!) I am pretty sure the bride and groom will thank you profusely.

Do you have any registry advice or stories to share?