Wow, I have been the biggest slacker on this. I am a whole week past our “4 month mark” and am just now getting around to releasing a blog post. Needless to say, life has been crazy. We moved into a rental house so everything is new and there has just been a lot going on. So to stick with the “moving into a house” idea, what better way to celebrate this special time than to talk about…
REGISTRIES!
I know you’re excited! 🙂
Ahhhh the registry. One of the most selfish and yet necessary (according to your guests) parts of wedding planning; the virtual list of stuff that we want you to buy us because we are fairly certain we need it. The wedding registry at its core has remained consistent for several decades (depending on what culture you’re discussing). The method of creating and dispersing registry information has changed drastically over the past several years! Your modern-day bride may never even visit a store to set up her registry. With the magic of technology and the internet, she can create her registry entirely online and send links to family and friends or add it to shower invitations, etc. Although, the little scanny guns are still pretty exciting tools in creating a registry in stores.
Anyway, many stores make it very easy to create a registry from the comfort of your couch. Some of the most popular stores for registering are Target, Williams and Sonoma, Kohls, Pottery Barn, Macy’s, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Best Buy. We selected three of these: Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Best Buy. Why? Because…
1. There is a wide range of prices. Your best friend who just got out of college and is dirt poor can shop for you at the same store that your rich grandmother can. And that has value!
2. They are common throughout the US. Since we have family spread all across the country, we wanted to choose places that exist across several states.
3. There is enough of a variety of items between the three stores that all departments of home living are covered.
Side note: Registering at Best Buy involved downloading an app (if you choose to visit the store) and scanning items with your phone. It was insane.
Now purchasing from the registry is easy as ever. Guests can follow links from our wedding website and not only see all of the items we added but also what has already been purchased, all from their iPhones! No need to print out the list at the registry counters. It’s very convenient.
We also added a Honeyfund account to our registry options! This is a website dedicated to collecting money that will be put towards the honeymoon. You can set it up to where guests can give you any amount of money or they can specify what part of your honeymoon they would like to fund. (i.e. food, airfare, hotel, etc.) Often out of town guests don’t want to bother with purchase large gifts and would rather give money, but want to know what their money is being used for. Honeyfund is one of the best ways to let them know!
So apart from the Honeyfund, what do you ask for? What do you put on these mysterious registries? Anything under the freaking sun???
Not really.
It is true, you can ask for whatever you want. Whether you get it or not is a different story. You want to keep in mind the variety of wedding guests you’ll have in attendance and be sure to register for things in different price categories. It is best to have several items in the $15 and under category all the way up to over $150 category. Work through different sections of your home and consider things that you can see using long-term, maybe even the house you decide to buy someday, in each section. It could be as small as a set of measuring spoons to as large as an entertainment center! There are countless lists and tips on websites like Pinterest to ensure that you don’t overlook any possibility when making registry decisions. Although, everyone is different, and the registry of a couple who has been living together for years will look very different from that of the couple who just moved out of their parents’ house to get a place together for the first time. So take all recommendations with a grain of salt. Do what makes sense to you.
This couple obviously has a lot to register for. But look how happy they are!
NOTE: This is not typically a “bride only” task. This takes the works of both partners collaborating and making these decisions together. As long as he gets his exotic knife set on there he will probably enjoy the process. But you can also use his opinion on what color bath towels, what brand of toaster oven, and what antique looking lamp will fit best in your new life together.
Whether we want to accept it or not, a life together kind of automatically includes twice as much crap and things that you might not need. So choose wisely. And go use the scanny guns! They are fun.
❤
500 Days of Wedding 