Well, the parties have started, and the gifts are arriving. You know, they really weren’t kidding when they decided to call them showers, were they? After my first bridal shower on Saturday afternoon, I’m completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our friends and family. This is just unreal!
Oh, and I will post pictures from the shower later this week. Mr. Magnolia and I are in the process of purchasing/moving into our new house (!!!), so the computer isn’t hooked up for me to upload my pictures to!
Anyway, Mr. Magnolia and I registered last spring at Crate & Barrel and Bloomingdale’s. We chose those two stores because they both happened to be having Registry 101 events on the same day, and we liked the items that they offered. Easy enough, right? It works for our friends and Mr. Mag’s family in Atlanta, it works for my extended family in New York/New England, and it works for our friends who are internet-savvy. But you know who it doesn’t work so well for? Our friends and family in Greenville, SC — where my parents live. Greenville doesn’t have a Bloomingdale’s OR a Crate & Barrel.
So my mom and I talked about it while we wandered through Macy’s yesterday afternoon, and we made a decision. I’m going to create an online registry at Macy’s, which will duplicate some of the items on our Bloomingdale’s registry. More than likely, I’ll add our fine china, our casual glasses, our pots and pans, and maybe our casual china.
The purpose is not to get duplicate gifts and return them, but rather to give more people the option of actually going to a store and purchasing items off our registry. I’ll keep up with both online, and as items are purchased, I will delete them from the other store. Does that make sense? I don’t want it to seem like we’ve actually registered for 24 5-piece place settings. But rather, if someone purchases a set from Bloomingdale’s, I’ll also delete a set from Macy’s. It probably would have been easier for a lot of our guests if we had registered at Macy’s from the start…but we didn’t. And the thing is, we’ve had fantastic customer service at our Bloomingdale’s, so I want to keep that one as well.
So here’s my question - has anyone else created duplicate registries to accommodate their guests? How did it turn out for you? Was it difficult to keep up with? Did you have to make that many more returns?
i’m doing the same thing. we’ve registered for the same china place settings at both linens n things and macy’s. when i see them purchased, i delete them from the other store. it works out.
I plan on doing the exact same thing. My father’s family in South GA doesn’t have a Bed Bath & Beyond, let alone a Macy’s or any of the national department stores. So, we had to register at Belk, which they do have. I’ll watch for things to be purchased and remove them accordingly.
we had the same problem with the lack of stores in my fiance’s hometown. we ended up registering at amazon for the things we really wanted and put a few things on a macy’s registry just so his family friends could go into a “real” store to purchase presents.
I see the deliemma. But it seems like this has the potential to become a very big hassle for you, though, especially considering a great many guests will buy your wedding gifts in the hectic days leading up to and following your wedding — when you’ll be too busy (or on your honeymoon!) to care about monitoring for duplication. So you may end up returning more gifts than you bargain for in the end.
I went to Macy’s first to make my registry because there are so many more locations convenient to our guests. In the end, the items we chose weren’t available for purchase on their website, which was important to us. We visited Bloomingdale’s over the weekend to see if it would make more sense for us to register there and learned something interesting…Macys and Bloomingdales are the SAME COMPANY! What that means is, it’s possible to pull up and purchase from a Macy’s registry at a Bloomingdales and it’s also possible to purchase from a Bloomingdale’s registry at a Macy’s. Your guests would need to know to speak to a Registry associate (who would be knowledgable about this relationship) with access to a store computer (not the registry kiosks that customers can access), but they could see your list, purchase from it and it would automatically make the appropriate deductions in the amounts of what you are still hoping to receive. The associate we spoke with said that since they are the same company, prices and stock tend to be quite similar.
I have to agree with Rachel, this could become a huge hassle and lead to lots of time spent returning things. My husband’s family is from a state that doesn’t have Macy’s, C&B, Williams Sonoma, etc. so we thought we were pretty stuck. We ended up just registering at C&B and Macy’s and people either bought things online or sent money or a different type of gift. In general, I think 75% of guests bought things online anyway and had them shipped, it didn’t matter even if they had a real store close to them.
I just registered for completely different stuff at each store I registered at since I like to change my dishes and stuff often.
Miss Magnolia, Atlanta
Age and Occupation: 28, Public Affairs and Government Relations
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 28, Lobbyist
Engagement Date: December 1, 2006
Wedding Date: January, 2008
Blogging Since: September 6, 2007
Venue: catherdral ceremony/private club reception
About Me: Mr. Magnolia and I are thrilled to be planning an evening, winter wedding for 200 people in Atlanta. We both work in politics and share a love of University of Georgia football, pop culture, and good food! I'm a runner who adores wedding magazines, bad reality television, and a
good glass of wine. Most of the time I like to think I'm pretty organized, but between wedding planning, house hunting, and a full-time job, I'm being put to the test!
We thought about it since my fiance’s family lives up north and mine in the south. We finally settled on Macy’s and Kohl’s, b/c there is enough of each within traveling distances for most of our guests. We’ve also created other registries for our local guests.