China and Crystal and Flatware! Oh My!!

Registering for wedding gifts is a normal part of the wedding planning process.  Although I felt a little uneasy about asking people for thousands of dollars worth of presents for my fiance and I, we ended up having a great  time registering.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that this was not our first time registering.  Shortly after our engagement, we went to a Wedding Registry Event at Crate & Barrel with some friends who were getting married much sooner than we are.  I hadn't really planned on registering at Crate & Barrel but they were offering free gifts and refreshments and those are two things that make me weak in the knees.  For the C & B experience, we just showed up, picked out a couple things that we liked, and scanned them all.

Things were very different when we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond earlier this week.  I had decided that most of our registry would be at BB&B because I had been totally turned off from Macy's by a friend who went through a nightmare with their wedding registry.  C & B didn't have a great selection of the big ticket items that I knew I wanted to have - china, crystal and flatware.  At least I cook and entertain enough that I can justify asking for these expensive pieces, even though I really just love the idea of them right now since our current home is too small to do any major entertaining in.  Anyways, I expected the registration process at BB&B to be time consuming and intense but I had no idea how much of both of those things it would really be.

I do have to say that the service that we received from the Bridal Registry staff at BB&B was outstanding.  We had our own registry consultant who was extremely helpful and knowledgeable, the manager came over to introduce himself and see if we needed anything, and they even ordered food in for us so that we could have a little lunch.  One of the most beneficial aspects of the process was having our registry consultant take out the china that we liked and setting up a table with the china, crystal and flatware options.  I had heard that this was a helpful part of picking out the expensive stuff but I had honestly discounted it.  In my mind, the fiance and I are smart people who can imagine what a table will look like without having it all in front of us.  Well, I was wrong (this is not something that comes out of my mouth very often so everyone should savor it), having everything there in front of you is extremely useful and I would recommend to anyone that they do that when they register.

So loooong story short, we spent 4 hours in BB&B but it was all worth it in the end.  We have picked out things that we really love and will hopefully become family heirlooms in the future.  Thinking about how the things that we have chosen might be passed down from generation to generation has helped me to feel better about asking people for gifts.  After all, we are starting a whole new family - we gotta feed them on something!