Weddingbee Blog

source

I’m interrupting our regularly scheduled—OK, randomly scheduled—recaps to talk about our registry. We are hitting the 6 month mark soon, which is totally crazy; time is flying by. Hitting the sixth month mark actually means something…it means registry completion discounts expire.

After six months, you have an idea of how you feel about your registry picks. You also start questioning whether you actually need all those leftover items you went six months without.

I’ve realized there are some items we received that I can’t live without, some items we received but could live with out, some we wish we had registered for, those we almost didn’t register for (but we’re glad we did), and those we haven’t used a lot, but are looking forward to testing out.

I was super picky about what we put on our registry. We don’t have a lot of storage in our house and we plan on being there for a while, so I didn’t want to register for items that would be collecting dust in our attic. Despite that, there are still some items we could have gone with out.

Exhibit A: the blender. We registered for an awesome Kitchen Aid blender. I was on the fence about it, but we talked about making smoothies and shakes. There hasn’t been a shake or smoothie yet. We aren’t shake people, so I’m not quite sure why we started envisioning this. I think part of it had to do with people telling us we didn’t have enough on our registry in certain price points, so we added a few random things that we thought we’d maybe want one day. I also have to admit I liked that it matched our other Kitchen Aid appliances.

Another item that’s on our could have lived without list is the electric knife. Mr. Starfish was so excited for this and we haven’t used it yet. I’m sure we’ll use it on holidays in the future, but for a couple with limited space, I definitely could have gone without this. Mr. Starfish still thinks it’s great.

So there were those items which we thought we’d use, which didn’t happen. Then there were the items we almost didn’t register for, like our coffee maker. Neither of us drink coffee, so we figured, why get one? This has been the most used kitchen appliance since we received it at our shower. Anytime we have people over, we make coffee. So despite our original reservations, this was a great buy.

On the entertaining front, I also wish we had registered for table linens. We didn’t have a table at the time, so we didn’t know what size to get, so we nixed the idea of linens completely and didn’t even look into them. Now months later I’ve been shopping around for linen napkins, a runner, and place mats, all of which could have been included on our registry without knowing our exact table length. I’ve been fixated on the Pottery Barn monogrammed collection and think I may need to purchase these before our completion discount runs out.

source

We’re still adding to the list (yes, six months later—Pottery Barn lets you add on up until the 6 month mark and you can use the discount on newly added items—Winning!) and we’re still getting around to testing out some of our new(ish) gifts. One item that hasn’t been touched is the crock pot. I’m kind of afraid of it. I didn’t grow up in a house that used one and I find it intimidating. When we registered for it, we had recently been to a friend’s dinner party where she made crock pot pulled pork. It was amazing and I decided we needed a crock pot. I’m still really excited about it, but I just have to get over the intimidation and try it out.

Another item that hasn’t gotten much use is our Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but despite the seldom usage, it’s still a registry all-star in my book. We used this guy to whip up tons of cookies at Christmas and make a ridiculous amount of my mom’s homemade pasta sauce one weekend. So while it doesn’t get much use yet, when it does, it’s amazing!

Another registry all star is our towels. They were by far one of the priciest gifts on our registry. Quite a few people made comments about us registering for expensive towels and only one guest bought any (FYI, I absolutely love this guest). I don’t regret registering for these at all, I’m actually pretty happy we did. We use them every day. They are super soft and high quality. It may seem frivolous to some, but it’s seriously like a little piece of heaven every day. Although I love our Kitchen Aid mixer, we’ve used it twice in 6 months. It cost much more than a few towels, and no one judged us on that.

We actually had many more registry all-stars that I can’t live without. So many, that I may need to go over those in a different post.

Overall, I wish we had included a fourth registry. People told me it was too much, so I kept it to three. Then people told me we didn’t have enough on our registries, but we had registered for everything we wanted from those stores. I ended up registering for random things, which aren’t getting much use. I wish I had just added the fourth place, which had more of the decorative items I really wanted.

So to sum it all up…

• Tip 1: Don’t register for things just because. They’ll just be a waste of space later.
• Tip 2: Think of entertaining, just because you don’t like something, it doesn’t mean it won’t be used. It may be useful when you have guests.
• Tip 3: Register at multiple places, even if no one knows. I added a 4th registry at Pottery Barn, but didn’t tell anyone. There were only a few items I wanted at the time. I added it after the shower and I’ve only purchased items from it post-wedding to get the completion discount.  I wish I had included Williams Sonoma, too!
• Tip 4: Register for what you want. Add a few frivolous items, if you really love them. Just make sure you have items in all price points, so no one feels left out.

What are your best registry tips? What items were your all stars, and which could you live without?