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July 28, 2007
Registry Ruminations
Because we've been together so long, and because my family, friends, and Derek have indulged my love of food by giving me fabulous kitchenware, we are well outfitted as far as household goods go. This, in combination with the fact that we feel odd about the whole registry business, is making it difficult for us to register for things. We would rather receive something old or unique, but it's difficult to say that (and you're not allowed to say you don't want anything). There's all sorts of etiquette weirdness, which I won't explore because I'm already breaching some sort of guideline just by writing about this in the first place.
I visited Williams Sonoma last week and found three things in the entire store that I thought we might need, and one was a balloon whisk. I followed that visit with one to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, thinking that they'd have a bigger selection. They do, but it's mainly the same good stuff accompanied by lots and lots of things of lesser quality that we don't need.
Those experiences pointed to Macy's or another department store, and that hunch was boosted by recommendations from friends. So we went there Friday night and introduced ourselves to Barbara. She told us all about their policy and presented us with registry swag -- a nice Swiss Army canvas bag. We learned about various perks, and she agreed to add a note about my preference for no gift wrap, even though any environmental impact will be outweighed by the mountains of styrofoam peanuts she said we'll get.
The registry experience is very retro. You are handed an absurd list of items that you "need" for setting up your home. You become familiar with words like "china" and "flatware" and "serving sets." You are encouraged to fill your home with the same stuff that everyone else has. You can make choices, but only within a limited range of items. The mother of the bride is meant to be the subtle purveyor of registry data. And as much as all of this feels a bit odd, we feel the need to follow protocol to make our guests' role easier, and so the process is perpetuated.
At Macy's, I started to get excited about the whole thing while chatting with Barbara. For my birthday, my mother gave me some lovely pieces from a Kate Spade dragonfly collection, and I could see it sitting right behind us in the registry area. Things seemed right with the world. They offered to hold our bags while we shopped and gave us THE SCANNER, which you kind of have to goof around with for the first 15 minutes, because it beeps and makes you feel sci-fi and silly.
We headed to the Cellar, where the kitchen things are. I think we spent an hour there, mostly wandering, because we could NOT find anything to scan.
Derek insisted on touring the freakish collection of commercial cookware (hot dog cookers, slushie makers, etc.) for no practical reason. I wanted so badly to scan things (and he badly wanted to scan ridiculous things for the sake of doing it), but you can't scan things you don't really want. When I finally decided that a big red pot looked kinda cool, the scanner didn't like it (I blame D, who scanned a sandwich label right before that happened, ostensibly in the name of scanner research for work.).
After visiting the linens and china floors (where we discovered completely distinct preferences for towels), we returned to the registry area with a sum total of TWO items on our list, wondering if Barbara might decide that we weren't worthy of the swag bag or the bag checking services after all. We had all of Macy's at our disposal for three hours and we couldn't pick things that we would want to receive for free. This says something about us. And Macy's. At least I didn't get lost in the store this time or succumb to the mall pretzel place.
We've investigated a few sites that let you register for things at any store, anywhere. We looked at myregistry.com (password is required for guests!?) and felicite.com (guests are charged a $6 "handling" fee and the items aren't even purchased -- they just collect cash and give it to you, I think?). We've looked at thethingsiwant.com, and even though it has the right functionality, the name is in such poor taste that we can't imagine telling people about it.
Update: I wrote the rest of this a couple of weeks ago and am just getting around to posting it. We've finally posted a page of the wedding website (after much debate) acknowledging the awkwardness of the whole thing and listing a) charities, b) a list of vintage items and one-offs from places like Greenjeans and VivaTerra, and c) links to traditional registries, where we still have a combined total of fewer than 10 items (finding flatware we like -- one thing we need -- should help that a bit). The page begins with, "Emily Post tells us that this page is in extremely poor taste..." Not sure how it will be received, but we're on a deadline. That said, the gifts we've received so far feel really special -- our friends and family largely have great taste, so we're lucky in that regard.
Posted by csageday at July 28, 2007 01:31 PM