How to start your Bridal Gift Registry at Macy’s.com and in a recession
- A simple yet elegant white china pattern with a robin’s egg blue border from Noritake.
We spent our Saturday starting our wedding/bridal registry at Macy’s last weekend. We knew it would take a while to work through all the possible combinations of silverware and glassware (crystal) with the china I have passed down from my family but we did not know it would take about 6 hours. Yikes!
The bridal registry process at Macy’s is a bit different than it was at Crate and Barrel. Both give you hand held scanners to input items on your registry but Macy’s has a data entry process first. You work with a “Bridal Registry Consultant” to enter all your names, addresses, wedding dates and mother’s info. Yes, they call your mom and your fiance’s mom when things are on sale to let them know in case they were planning on buying anything and want to get a good discount. This is nice, but at the same time you know it ends up with more sales too.
They also want you to open up a Macy’s credit card to get 5% back on all the purchases that people make from your registry. This isn’t something we did, but if you have 300 people coming to your wedding it could bring you a big Macy’s gift certificate bonus.
- The scanner you use to enter items into your registry at the store.
The hardest part about finding things for your wedding gift registry at Macy’s is considering all the choices. We went to the State Street Store in Chicago because they had more china, glassware and bedding selection but many of these brands and items are specific to that store. So, some items aren’t listed online and if someone wants to purchase them from the registry they have to call the State Street store directly. I am not sure that is going to go over very well with relatives, but it is what seems to be the case with how Macy’s works.
If you do decide to register at Macy’s for your wedding here are some tips:
1. Look at items online at Macys.com before you get to the store. Get an idea of what colors and styles you are interested in for china, crystal, flatware, silver, bedding, sheets and household appliances. (because there are hundreds to choose from, and many are almost exactly the same) Also, look very carefully at the costs. Prices are sometimes hard to find on items in the store, and they would love you to register for the most expensive items possible. This way when you get there you may already have a few finalists/favorite patterns in china and crystal within your budget that you can look at with your fiance and save a ton of time.
2. Ignore the list of items they give you to check off and register for. That would only be appropriate for someone who had nothing in their kitchen now and wanted every possible item regardless of whether they needed it or not. We’re in a recession so everybody is spending less and we can’t expect relatives and friends to pay $80+ for a crystal goblet or $500 for a silver flatware place setting.
- The crystal stemware I chose, only the water goblet and wine goblet though, not the champaigne flute or small white wine glass, who needs 4 glasses for each place setting?
Most of the items have a range and I tried to stay with nice quality on the lower end of price. The wine & water goblet stemware I chose were Lenox and on sale they were $20 each. Unfortunately, we don’t know what the price was off sale. The flatware we chose to go with the china was from Oneida and it was $64 on sale from $87 per place setting. In towels we avoided the hotel collections because they were so expensive and didn’t have a large range of colors. (mostly just white, grey, beige & brown) We registered for Charter Club towels and bath rugs in aqua and a chocolate brown. They can work together or in separate bathrooms and work with some of our existing white/cream colored towels.
3. Really do a good inventory of both your place and your fiance’s place before starting the registry process. We found that since I have lived on my own for 7 years and he has for 12 that we had most everything we needed in the kitchen and didn’t need to register for daily use plates, glasses or silverware (we actually have duplicates). We also found that with the exception of a kitchen aid (or sunbeam) mix master, we also had all the kitchen small appliances that we could possibly ever use. Asking friends what they liked and used from their registry is also helpful.
Keeping your list down helps relatives and family get you what you really need and not spend money on things you won’t use for a long time. Making a list when you do that inventory or find a recipe that requires a utensil/equipment that you don’t have is also helpful because running around a 12 story department store with a scanner can get out of hand quickly.
Also, a personal note: I think the Martha Stewart Items at Macy’s are really low quality and I don’t recommend registering for them because they are cheap copies of big name designers and will fall apart in a year or two of use. Save yourself the headaches and get the better brands and originals that will last a lifetime. (Martha Stewart’s cookware, pots, bed linens and towels are all very low quality at high prices, such a scam)
4. If you have a wedding web site link your bridal registry page from there so it is easy to find and make sure to explain that you have a lot of things already and these lists are specifically things you don’t already own.
Ignore the checklists unless you don't already have these items. We're in a recession and some people can be offended if you pick the most stuff at high prices right now.
5. Macys.com like Crate & Barrel, has an online log-in for your bridal gift registry so that you can search, view and add things to the list that way too. We forgot to add a mattress pad to the list and a clothing steamer (faster than ironing!) so I just added those online today.
6. Don’t be offended if someone calls you and says that they found your pattern at a Lenox or Mikasa China outlet store, sometimes people can find your pattern at a great price and afford to get you more of a gift that way. if they do, remove it from the registry or mark it as already bought so other people won’t give duplicates.
I was reading in the Knot Chicago Bridal Magazine about things that people registered for and never used and I found the list interesting. The things real brides said they never ended up using and wouldn’t recommend registering for were: Giant Wok; Hard to store and still wasn’t their cooking style, Fondue Pot; Used once, never again; Ice Cream Maker; who really uses these when you can buy so much ice cream at the Jewel?, and fancy Egyptian cotton sheets; they were so expensive that it was too scary to use them. I think registering for reasonably priced items that you will really use every day is far smarter.
What tips do you have about your bridal registry experience at Macy’s?