Three Useful Registry Tips (Earned in a Frustrating Afternoon)

Building a wedding registry is supposed to be one of the “fun” parts of wedding planning, and why shouldn’t it be? Selecting the items that build a cohesive home is exciting, but there are a few things I wish I was better prepared for when I built my own registry:  

Online Reviews:
One of the frustrating things about registering in-store is the lack of knowledge we had about each individual item. No amount of prep work would have prepared us for the number of options we had. On-the-spot research was not an option, and I was not looking forward to the research once we got home. When we make a purchase for our home, it’s usually informed. We spend time looking up reviews online, shopping around, and THEN finding the right loofah for us. When everything that we register for has to come from one or two places and we’re largely uninformed about what it is we should be noting, registering can get frustrating. How am I supposed to know what to look for in a good set of high balls when I encounter them? We wasted a lot of time worrying for no reason. I thought I was going to have to sift through our registry and Google each item individually to find reviews, but I found that our online registry info links right to reviews. I suggest that any couple looking to build a registry hops right online after making the first sweep of the store. If something you scanned isn’t up to par when faced with the harsh judgment of the internet, strike it from the world. It is way less of a pain to swap out a few unsightly items online than to pull out your phone every few minutes in-store to make sure you’re selecting the right knife block.

The Huge Amount of Time it Takes:
I popped into Bed, Bath, and Beyond with my fiancé just to entertain the idea of starting a registry. We ended up staying for so long that we had to designate a lunch break. We’d browsed the website a little beforehand and thought that we only really wanted a stand mixer and some actual storage containers (that aren’t stained with spaghetti sauce) but a grand tour of the store was peppered with realizations like “Well, our suitcases are older than we are” and “We should probably graduate to bath towels that don’t have ragged edges.” It was a long day.   One suggestion I have for managing the time commitment? Come with an aesthetic for your future (or current) home in mind. We didn’t have one, and the hemming and hawing over differences in style ate up a lot of our day. We ended up figuring out what we liked, but only after we’d made our way through half of the store.  

Be Clear:
Here’s something I wasn’t expecting: I really hate being referred to as the “bride.” The sales associate assigned to follow us around the store just would not stop referring to me as “the/my bride,” and it drove me absolutely nuts. By referring to me as “his bride” and introducing me (and only me) to the other employees that way, I felt as if he was ignoring my fiancé. But the problem here wasn’t the sale associate’s terminology; it was that I made my registry experience less fun by not asking him to refer to my fiancé and I as a unit. So the advice here is to be straightforward with whoever is helping you to build your registry – be it a salesperson or your mother. Don’t be pushed into registering for things you don’t need, and don’t sit and stew in anger over terminology that frustrates you. Registering should be fun, and being straightforward about your needs and preferences will make the experience more enjoyable for everyone!