We put a down payment on the hall, the caterer, the DJ, and the photographer and then two months later the country plunges into economic meltdown. You’d think waiting for ten years to get married would be the antithesis of bad timing but – yeesh!

We tightened our budget a bit, pushed the honeymoon back, and started finding ways to make the wedding easier for everyone’s weary pockets (including our own). It makes sense, after all – we’re inviting 100 people to our wedding and around 75% of them are probably coming from out of town. That’s already a pretty big commitment for people; we don’t want to make it any harder than it has to be. But never-the-less we had to register eventually and we now have live registries at Bed Bath & Beyond and Amazon. We’re going to register at Macy’s, too.

Before I get into a lengthy blog post on the trials and tribulations of registering let me say that we just want you to come. Everyone should make that their first priority. Like I said, we’re keeping the guest list to a 100 people. We had to make some very painful decisions when it comes to first tier and second tier invitees and we really hope that everyone we invite can come up to Boston for what’s guaranteed to be a good weekend and a fun wedding on us. Ok, with that said…

We originally set up a registry at Target, figuring we could load it up with low-cost stuff, but the experience there left us cold. It was very impersonal and after we went through the store picking out the things we wanted we realized that we didn’t really want any of the stuff we registered for. Target’s good for getting things that you plan on replacing a couple of years down the line and that’s not what weddings are about. Weddings are about starting a new life and building a collection of stuff that the loving couple plan on keeping until they die (or at least the kind of stuff you can pawn for food if things get really bad).

So we went to Bed Bath & Beyond. We figured the 20% off coupons they routinely distribute in the Sunday paper would make it easier for folks who wanted to get us a wedding gift. We knew what we wanted – new pots, cutlery, bedding – all the routine stuff. When we sat down at the registry desk, however, the woman who was guiding us through the process (who was awesome, by the way) convinced us we should put some of the more keepsake-like items on our registry. The crystal and the picture frames and the high-quality glassware. We picked a whole bunch of things off their premium lists at first and then went home and took off some of the more ridiculous items like the $200 cheese plate and the $150 rose bowl. We like cheese and we like roses but…you know.

Then we set something up on Amazon. If it were up to me, the Amazon registry would be much longer and complete with things like the Deadwood complete season boxset and maybe some chrome truck nutz to hang off the back of my Matrix. But it’s not up to me so we stacked it with cook books, wine accessories, some electronics, and Wii Fit because, you know, I have to lose some weight.

We’re going to Macy’s to register but I imagine that registry would look a lot like the BB&B one. To be honest, our main motivation for going there is the fact that they give you free champagne to drink while you walk around the store. I like champagne. So does Robin.

And that’s the registry situation. Like I said, we just want you to come. But if you’d like to get us a wedding gift, please feel free to peruse our lists. And please, please, please take advantage of BB&B’s 20% off coupons. We can’t stress that enough. It’s partly the reason why we registered there so don’t let a great deal go to waste.

Labels: costcutting, planning, registry