Wedding Blog
The rest of this registry talk is going to be prefaced by a long story, the beginning of which involves my birthday!
My parents made a big deal of my birthday last year even though I had just brushed it off. They smuggled a tuxedo cake across the border, strawberries and all. My mother also expertly picked out a wonderfully large double boiler because I had mentioned that I’d wanted to steal my aunt’s. Yay for steamed vegetables!
I have the same handful of random pots my mother had lent me when I moved out for university at seventeen. Two pots and one frying pan. I did fork out $12 for a large cast iron frying pan this fall, but that was all. Seriously. And I don’t go out for dinner very often. I’ve somehow managed to avoid investing in Le Creuset pans, as well as simple kitchen essentials like a garlic press, a decent bottle opener, metal measuring cups etc. etc. in the name of “I need to wait for the gift registry.”
I did okay through college, but when it came to moving to the US, and dividing my kitchen supplies between my apartment and his separate apartment, it got a little tricky. Gone are the days when we live at home till we say I do. Women go to college, build careers, and get married down the road. I used the gift registry excuse long before we were engaged and now that the wedding is still a few months the road, I’m just going to have to keep smushing my garlic against my cheese grater.
However, Mr. Milkshake ended up buying me one of these babies for Christmas:
And my parents must have felt so immensely sorry for my lack of pots and pans so they bought me this fantastically good quality but still affordable Kenmore set (think ~$150) from Sears for Christmas:
But those unexpected gifts aside, am I the only one that has irrationally avoided buying kitchen essentials in the name of a wedding registry (which I haven’t even put together yet?!).
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d00d, my FI & I have been living together for years now, and we still are on the irrational avoidance-because-of-registry game!
It’s not so much about not being able to afford it or not wanting to buy the stuff–there’s just something in us that thinks “that’s how it should be” … and it’s definitely irrational
Haha. No, you are not alone! I do that about everything, not just cookware. “You’re cold? Put a blanket on the gift registry.” That was before we even had a registry too.
I am beginning to avoid buying anything. We are just realizing the magic of the registry. Last weekend we were at Lowes buying shelving, and FI wanted to look at new glass globes for the lights in the hallway, which led to new light fixtures for the hallway, which led to a a whole new registry light bulb in our heads… serious house hardware!! Medicine cabinets, bathroom fixtures, window shades!! Darn, and I just bought all that paint…
Yeah my garlic press totally just bit the dust, and we have been”suffering” with a very difficult to use corkscrew for a year now because we don’t want to buy one ! so you are not alone… HOWEVER I”m sure afterwards the registry, instead of causing the avoidance of spending on kitchen/bath supplies will give us an excuse to buy things we DON”T really need, but were scanned in the heat of the moment because they were there and they were shiny because we get that little completion discount !
I’m a serious chef and baker, and I have the crappiest kitchen equipment. My one good thing is my KitchenAid mixer (which I bought for myself 5 years ago), but I have a pathetic collection of pots and pans (read: 4) - there is nary a Calphalon or All-Clad in sight despite my serious obsession with food and making it at home. My dishes are all mismatched and were purchased either from Ikea, National Liquidators, or given to me by my brother. Silverware? Ragtag collection donated by brother’s and parents’ rejects that don’t match their sets. I’m itching to get married JUST so I can get PROPER kitchen stuff (well, that’s not REALLY why I want to get married 
I guess I’m in the minority since I decided when I started medical school that I wasn’t going to not have nice things because I wasn’t married. I had no idea if I was going to get married anytime soon and I was ready to be living like an adult and not like a student anymore. Being on a limited budget, I became quite the bargin hunter ( I love Marshalls) and I only bought things I actually needed - pots and pans, kitchen equipment, furniture, things for entertaining, etc. It’s a good thing I didn’t wait since it’s taken me nine years to find the perfect man and plan our dream wedding. Since he’s been on his own for awhile also, we already have all of the basics so now we can register for things that are more fun like crystal (for me) and fancy camping gear (for him). I definitely don’t think that marriage is when you’re adult life starts so you should buy what you need as you can afford it. There’s still plenty of great stuff to register for later.
This is why is still don’t have a kitcheaid mixer. I have drooled over them for years and want one in the worst way with maximum mixing capacity since I always double or triple my recipies.
We infact broke our garlic press (a nice one too) before Christmas and so I picked up the cheapest one I could find to go in my FI’s stocking. I figures we could register for a really nice one. Well that was a total waste. I ended up having to fork over even more money for a decent one because the cheap one does not work very well at all.
There are several other things I have on the registry wait list but since I am in my 30s I had slowly picked up or recieved as gifts most of the things we needed or wanted. Like the great pasta pot/steamer that I found on cooks.com marked down by 80% plus I a coupon for another $15 off my total order. I just couldn’t resist. The ice cream maker and pasta maker were among those types of purchases. I have also slowly been building my knife collection.
Still many things are worn and could use a replacement, those frying pans witht he scratches in the coating, the hideously scarred cutting boards, the hald set of mismatched glasses, etc.
“Let’s register for it!” has been a mantra in the lunapark household since almost immediately after we got engaged. Neither of us have really nice cookware, dishware, knives, kitchen gadgets or glasses and we’ve managed to break nearly half of my nice wine glasses, and yet we love to cook and entertain. We have a couple of nice pieces here and there (I have a Kitchenaid mixer which was a b’day present, a couple of nice knives which were also birthday presents, etc.) but we’re both pretty excited by the prospect of having some more nice things to go along with all the nice meals we like to cook each other and any guests who show up as well.
I did the EXACT same thing! I lived on my own for years with disgusting, mismatched pots that had the teflon flaking off of them (very healthy, I’m sure!) and utensils that looked like they were out of the stone age. About 3 months before I got engaged I took a job with KitchenAid (who made that fab mixer you got) and REALLY had to restrain myself from taking the employee discount out for a spin! I got married 6 months ago, and I can truly say my kitchen is now officially blinged to the max with everything you could ever want. In the end, I rwas actually glad I had held off on things, because I felt absolutely no guilt in getting brand new stuff to start our life together! I think it depends on your timing….if I’d gone much longer without getting engaged, you can bet there is no way I could have held out, and I would have furnished my kitchen on my own. If people need those things, I say go get them—you will always find more things to register for, and many people will opt for the ever-useful gift of money, which is always welcome!
I have broken down twice now and bought MYSELF things off of our own registry because I was totally desperate (i love to cook and was dying without a food processory and blender.) I’m trying to hold out until august though for the rest…. fingers crossed.
me too! i’ve been living without a skillet with a lid my entire adult life. and i cook — a lot. Just the other day I was in C&B and saw this “year of cookie cutters” set that was sooo cute and thought, “oh, I wish we had registered here so I could put that on our registry!” It was $12. Why I didn’t just buy it myself, I don’t know.
heh…when we were dating, Mr Corn got a ‘reward’ at work and was able to choose from a variety of fun prizes. He decided to go with the calphalon pots and pans set. I was livid at the time because I thought it was a waste since we might get engaged someday and register for new ones. In the end I got a grip and we just didn’t register for new ones…you know…because the Calphalon ones rock so why would we ever need to replace them??!!
I’m totally with you about this. A rubber spatula? Functioning oven mitts? Matching flatware? All of it is on the registry.
LOL! i have been doing this, sadly, for about 2 years now.
we’ve only been engaged for just shy of 3 months.
i was fairly sure we were going to get married though. so i wasn’t going to shell out any hard earned cash when i could register and others would buy it for me.
This post is sooo funny, we have been surviving on 2 wine glasses because we refuse to buy any more….
I am so glad I am not alone! I love to cook and bake, always have my friends over for dinner and they always give me a hard time that I don’t have the nicer stuff that I have my eye on. But I was insistent on waiting for the registry, especially because FI and I have been together for so long I knew it would one day happen. However, I broke down a few years ago and put some of my dream stuff on a wish list for Christmas and lo & behold, my dad got me my dream KitchenAid mixer. Gotta love it!
So glad to be able to tell FI that I’m not alone in this!!! He has always had the philosophy that if you want it, buy it. It took some time after he moved in for him to get used to the fact that we would live with the crappy stuff we have until we’re married. But now that we’ve gotten to register for such nice stuff, I think he finally gets why it was good that we waited. We would’ve just ended up buying slightly less crappy stuff that we could afford to get us by. We’re admitted registry stalkers, watching for the nice stuff to become ours!!
Nope! I’m in the opposite camp. I have a VERY well stocked kitchen. Dishes, silverware, pots, pans, knives and a vast collection of kitchen appliances. It’s all stuff that I want to use for my own needs. It just didn’t make sense to wait to get them. Needless to say, I will not be needing anything kitchen-wise. Guess that leaves room for fun stuff that we would never get for ourselves. 
This is interesting because I actually have never lived away from home. Although technically I’ve lived with my grandparents since I was about 16 for closer to school benefits, I never even lived in dorms during college.(I’m 24 now)
So we basically have no kitchen or bedroom things since I still live at home and he’s from the Del Taco school of cooking and for example has 2(yes, 2!) butter knives he borrowed from Granny when he moved here for a job after college.
We’ll have really good electronics, though
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Mrs. Milkshake, Seattle/Vancouver, BC
Age and Occupation: 23, Pharmacist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Pharmacist
Engagement Date: May 2007
Wedding Date: August 2008
Blogging Since: December 6, 2007
Venue: Victorian Mansion
About Me: Despite the fact that I’ve invested many long years of my life studying the sciences in college, I’m glad to be out of there and I would never do it again! I’m super artsy at heart - I run an indie craft site, I grew up shooting and developing my own film, doing jazz and ballet, and the whole gamut of art classes. I’ve been called a Jane of all Trades… but I was also told many years ago not to make my passion my career because it’d suck the fun out of it. Hence my choice of day job. We live in Seattle but are having our wedding in Canada to be fair to all our family and friends.
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