Wedding Blog
There’s nothing like a wedding to create a lengthy to-do list. And as Mr. Bruschetta and I have recently discovered, that list doesn’t magically disappear after the last piece of cake’s been eaten. Nope, we’re still plodding along wrapping things up with vendors, starting to tackle our thank you notes and finding spots in our tiny apartment for our shiny new cooking tools.
Which brings me to… our registries. Mr. Bruschetta and I plan to spend our monetary wedding gifts — and shower gift cards — stocking our kitchen. (And our nonexistent china hutch; we were gifted two flatware settings and one china set — which would make for a reeeeally awkward dinner party — so we definitely need to add some more Kate and Vera to the family.) We’d discussed giving our exhausted credit cards a much-deserved reprieve, and revisiting our registries in early 2010.
But then Macy’s called. It turns out that our china and flatware are buy three get one free through October 4. Not tempting enough? Well, how ’bout an extra 10% off? Yup, Macy’s dangled the carrot. The completion discount carrot.
*Williams-Sonoma and Bed Bath & Beyond are also enticing us to go shoppin’ with 10% registry completion discounts. (I’m not sure if our last store, Sur La Table, offers a completion discount — but I’ll definitely be looking into it!)
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We dont have the coin to complete our registry now, but I did use my 10% registry coupon & gift cards on the things decided we needed/wanted right away. Though that new couch and side chair will have to wait a while longer after all.
We own two houses and pre wedding owned next to no furniture. We used our wedding money to buy our china (his grandparents requested using the money they gave us for something special–ie china) and the rest went to our “stock the house” fund. We’ve since bought a leather sectional, sofa table, end table, china cabina, media console, and lots of decorating items. Luckily for us we were pretty well-stocked pre wedding.
Good luck with all of your shopping! We did use the gift cards we got on registry items like a down comforter and finishing up our bathroom accessories!
If I did it all over again, I’d do it the same! Buy the things you want/need the most–that’s my biggest recommendation!
10% isn’t that much off.. and I know that Macy’s will have your things on sale about 5 more times before Christmas… and don’t forget the after Thanksgiving sales! You might find much lower prices on your stuff closer to the holidays.
I’d say finish it. The splurge might be more than you planned, but the discounts on top of the discounts make it sound like the best deal you’re going to find!
I’m a sucker for discounts, I’d get the buy three get one free pieces now, then save the other items for later. Macys tends to have sales a lot so maybe some of the other items will go on sale as well? We just bought our friend’s wedding gift through Macys. Their flatware went almost 50% off, plus they had a weekend sale and we got an extra 15% off, so we got to splurge even more on them. We got a whole extra flatware set! The 15% off pretty much covered shipping.
I would get the settings now at the BOGO prices, but wait till after xmas for the rest!
Macy’s offered us the 10% off too… the problem? You have to meet with the wedding consultant at Macy’s to get the discount. This wouldn’t be a huge issue for us except that our local Macy’s doesn’t HAVE a wedding consultant; we’d have to drive 90 miles to Fargo to get our 10%. Ugh. Like many of the other commenters, we’re kind of penniless right now anyway, so we won’t be indulging in most of the discount deals offered to us. Sigh.
i would do the settings and any necessities you need now, but wait for the rest till later.
We’re debating about are our flatware serving sets. Really, I just need to get down to the store in person to pick them up. The only unpurchased things on our registry are a wooden spoon and a sieve. We really lucked out .
Macys will continue to give you amazing deals. They upped our completion discount to 20% three times in an enticement to complete our registries as well as offered as un additional percentage off if we opened a credit card with them. Granted, we didn’t get an offer for buy 3 get 1 free with china, so if I were you I’d calculate exactly what you’d end up buying and where the best deal would be. Also, bed bath and beyond the 10% completion is only worthwhile on stuff their 20% off coupons aren’t any good on. Even though their 20% off coupons say you can’t use them on kate spade china and all clad pans, they allowed us and our guests to use the 20% off coupons so….it all depends on where you go. William Sonoma was the only place where I found the 10% completion deal was the best I could find.
I think it depends on the store. I’m in the same boat re: Macy’s… I saw that buy 3 get 1 free deal and was tempted - but I’ve seen it before, and they’ll do it again. We’re asking for Macy’s gift certificates for upcoming birthdays and Christmas so that we’re ready the next time they run the sale.
Williams-Sonoma has a longer completion period (6 months vs Macy’s 3 months), and their sales are a little harder to predict, so in their case, I’d take advantage of a sale if they had one during our completion period.
Everything is on perma-sale right now. How long is the 10% good for?
I say buy a few to take advantage of the sale and then wait. There will be some people that did not yet buy you a wedding gift who will check out your registries- at least that’s what happened in my case!
We registered at Bed Bath and Beyond, and we only got about 1/3 of everything we registered for. I wanted to use the coupon, and I had collected a very large pile of their normal weekly coupons over the past few months. I looked through our registry, decided what we absolutely could use right now and what we had room for, and went shopping! I also took back one or two items from the registry we wanted but did not have room in our cabinets for. After my shopping spree I had about $400 worth of stuff and I only paid about $132. That included gift cards, coupons and a return. I was a little irritated with the manager though, because the cashier mentioned that they were having a completion event the next Sunday and tried to ask her manager if she could give me the 20% off instead of the normal 10%. The manager told me no I should just put everything back and come next week. I was surprised but at that point just wanted to get my stuff and go home, so I didn’t argue.
i think you have to figure out if the savings are more than the interest you’ll accumulate by putting the new stuff on credit cards (assuming that’s what you’re unsure about). if the savings are more, then it’s worth it. otherwise. just wait. sometimes, as my mom would say, “you can’t afford the savings”.
I’d say calculate it all out. We ended up returning some things we got that we really didn’t need and bought the things we really needed and wanted. And lucky us, we got 20% off at Macy’s that day! We ended up getting Wusthof knives and our All-Clad pots and pans - which were both on sale on top of it.
We’re not completing… we just don’t have the money right now 
We did use our discount to buy a few essentials though.
@Mrs. Mary Jane: That’s sucks that you have to meet w/ the consultant, we just told the lady at the register and she took off the 10%.
i saw get what you can now, mixing in the plethora of discounts macy’s always seems to have and save the bigger items for later.
We did our registry completions at Crate & Barrel and Bed Bath & Beyond right away to take advantage of the discounts. Crate & Barrel offered 10%-off that we could use once in the store and once online. Ten percent isn’t much, especially in Chicago where sales tax is 10.25%, but we strategized with gift cards.
Then we went to a completion event at BB&B and got 20% off our entire purchase. We deliberately left some non-urgent items on the registry for straggler guests who might still want to get us something. If the registry is dormant in a few months, we’ll go ahead and buy things with our cache of 20%-off coupons!
The nice thing about registry completion, at least at C&B and BB&B, is you can add/remove whatever you want after your wedding. At the BB&B completion event, we could just put whatever we wanted in our cart, and we got the 20% off!
I registered at C&B and Macy’s and intend to take advantage of the completion discounts (at least as much as possible). It will be tough post-wedding (in terms of the $$), but it will probably be worth it. Maybe you can get some things now and save for the other items later. Prioritize your list and get those things that really matter 
i’d say wait a little bit - those holiday/post-holiday sales sometimes bring EXTRA completion incentives on top of the sale prices. the economy sucks, but for those who register at macys… we win big time in the end!
That’s a tough decision! I think I’d have a hard time not spending the money and completing everything. :p
I think we have three months for the completion discount with Macy’s — but I’ll have to double check. You guys bring up some really good things to consider!
I decided to hold off until the Holidays. I know there are some items on our C&B registry that I really want, but I won’t be hosting any events until his birthday in March, so I’m going to save up my BB&B 20% off coupons, and wait until the spring. I hate credit cards, and would really prefer not to be paying off my Calphalon for the next 2 years!
Withint a week or two of cooking in the kitchen we realized how much we were still missing. We actually passed the completion discount at most places, but we’ve been using 20% off coupons at BB&B every couple weeks and using our enormous amount of gift cards. (that’s what happens when it’s a destination wedding for the groom’s side!)
We completed ours a bit after the wedding, but we didn’t buy every single thing we had left. Instead, we chose all the things we felt we needed vs. wanted.
its 3 months for Macy’s - and we finished ours about a week after the wedding. EVERYTHING was on sale, PLUS we got the 10% off! Better yet, Macys was having a 2 day 15% off sale on certain items last weekend, so we got some of them for 15% off rather than the 10. Watch how you time it!
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Mrs. Bruschetta, Philadelphia
Age and Occupation: 25, Communication Professional
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Physical Therapy Graduate Student
Engagement Date: November 30, 2007
Wedding Date: August 2009
Venue: St. Thomas of Villanova Church & the F.U.E.L. House
About Me: I’m a self-proclaimed grammar geek who loves singing (like, really belting it) in the car. My mister and I are planning a vibrant summer soiree celebrating our passions – including food and Philly – and when we make it official, we’ll have been together for eight years! Being super competitive is in my nature, and talking excessively is in my genes. I’ve got a terrible sense of direction, but can always easily find my way into Mr. Bruschetta’s arms.
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