Registries!! :)

[Carats]

So where is everyone registering??

I was also wondering how you figure out how many items to place on the registry (based on number of invites) and what type of price ranges are typical.

I was thinking of registering at bloomies and williams-sonoma.

 

[Bella_mezzo]

we did Macys and a charity registry.

Anywhere you register will give you a list of suggested registry quantities/items and you can go from there to modify it for your lifestyle/preferences.


Good luck...it is super fun

 

[LabRatPhD]

We are registered at Bloomie''s, William-Sonoma, and Neiman Marcus. Bloomie''s has been a real pain lately, so I don''t know how reliable the registry is or will be. It is our smallest, so we may get rid of it if it turns out to be more of a hassle. We do like the completion discounts that Bloomie''s and W-S offer, though.

The number of items we registered for is well over the number of people on the guest list because we wanted our guests to have plenty of things to choose from in lots of price points. We figure whatever doesn''t get bought, we will buy ourselves after the wedding. A good number of our items are under $50 (kitchen items) but we do have some pricey items (our china is $420/place setting). We know, for instance, FI''s grandmothers want to give us big ticket items and will not want to give cash. They prefer to give more traditional items like china or crystal. We also have friends who are just starting out in their careers so we made sure to have a lot of items under $50 and $100. In the end though, we know we can afford to buy whatever we don''t get so it''s not super important that we receive the entire china set or entire crystal set. The gifts aren''t terribly important - we just want people to come to the wedding and have a good time!

I don''t know if all of this is standard but it is what we came up with based on what we know about our guests.

 

[laughwithme]

We are registered at Bed, Bath and Beyond and Crate and Barrel.

We came *thisclose* to registering at Williams-Sonoma but eventually, we decided the price was just too high. Would some guests spend that money? Sure. Did I see the necessity of a $20 lotion/soap set, or $40 all-clad meauring cups? No.

We eventually chose C&B over WS because C&B offers so many linens, serving platters, etc. We are glad we made the switch - our C&B registry is full of really fun decorative stuff like vases, colored appetizer plates, glow lamps, etc. And that place is REALLY good priced. BBB has all of our linens, kitchen electrics, dinnerware, etc. Basically all the necessities.

We didn''t set out with a certain ratio of gifts to guests. We basically spent about 3-4 weeks (online and in store) adding tons of stuff we wanted - within reason. We spent that time deleting, adding, replacing, upgrading, downgrading, reading reviews. I got to the point where I only wanted one internet page to appear with our registry on BBB so I did cut a few items to hit that number.

 

[purselover]

We did macy''s, crate and barrel, and williams-sonoma in a variety of prices from just a few dollars to I think $400, the average price being around $100. We know our friends and family pretty well so we had a good idea of what they would spend. I think we registered for about 100 items, we had about 40-50 people I think invited to our engagement party and almost 200 to our wedding. We received the overwhelming majority of our gifts at our engagement party with only 3 or 4 actual gifts received at our wedding. (The rest were just checks)

I think when deciding on the number of items you should take in the norms of that area, in mine for example you always get a ton of engagement gifts with very few given at the wedding.

 

[Amzizzle]

We registered at Macy''s and Pottery Barn,it was kind of the mid price point.I won''t lie though Macy''s has been a bit of a pain in the but.It seems like it''s getting right up there with bloomingdales.

We are having a 60-70 person wedding and registered for two gifts a person ranging from $10-$400.

We don''t really care what we get.We just wanted to make sure there was a lot to choose from.

 

[shertz1981]

We''re registered at Williams-Sonoma, C&B and Bloomingdale''s.

Bloomingdale''s is a total PITA, stuff keeps going out of stock and all of our china accoutrements (platters, etc) ship in like 120 business days. I just basically redid the registry. The fact that our flatware is being discontinued is super annoying.

W-S and C&B are like dreams come true. Everything is smooth as silk with them. If either carried the mixer color I wanted (caviar), I would be done with Bloomie''s in an instant. I''m taking everything off that registry except for china, crystal and silver decor items, the mixer, and bedding.

Oh wait ... the bedding is being discontinued too.

We chose C&B b/c of the prices of the casual stuff -- glassware, plates -- and the look. They have an aesthetic that fits with ours really well, and I''m excited about the stuff we picked there. My friend bought me the Helsinki platter as an engagement gift and it is stunning, srsly.

W-S has the best kitchen stuff, IMO. I love their bakeware to death (and use it to death too).

Basically, I made sure I had a good mix of stuff in the $40 and under and the $50-$100 price range, with pricier items at Bloomie''s. That way, everyone has a selection.

 

[nkarma]

Date: 3/5/2010 1:54:47 PM
Author: Amzizzle
We registered at Macy''s and Pottery Barn,it was kind of the mid price point.I won''t lie though Macy''s has been a bit of a pain in the but.It seems like it''s getting right up there with bloomingdales.

We are having a 60-70 person wedding and registered for two gifts a person ranging from $10-$400.

We don''t really care what we get.We just wanted to make sure there was a lot to choose from.

Just FYI, Macy''s and Bloomingdale''s are the same company which may explain the pain.

 

[Amanda.Rx]

Crate & Barrel as well as Bed, Bath, & Beyond

 

[cakegirl]

We are definitely registering at Crate and Barrel (for everyday dishes, serving pieces, glassware, kitchen items and some decorative items) and a local jewelry store (for our fine china.)
I need a 3rd place as well, mostly for linens. I will probably do W-S and W-S Home or Restoration Hardware.
We are having 200-250 people and no one where I live gives cash so I need a lot of gifts in a good price range.

 

[Luckyeshe]

We''re registered at Macy''s, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Target. FI wanted to get some WII games as part of the registry so there we go!

 

[ladypirate]

We are registered at Williams-Sonoma and Amazon.com. We invited 250 guests (including kids--all in all we sent out about 130 invitations) and registered for 215 items (including duplicates). The mean value of the items we registered for is $40 and the median is $30.

Here's our breakdown of items. All of these include when we registered for more than one thing.

Amazon.com

Total Items: 148
Under $10: 36
$10 - $25: 45
$25 - $50: 52
$50 - $100: 10
Over $100: 5

Williams-Sonoma:

Total Items: 67
Under $10: 5
$10 - $25: 9
$25 - $50: 17
$50 - $100: 33
Over $100: 3

Some random musings on our registry that might help you:

The main things on our Williams-Sonoma registry are our metal bakeware (cookie sheets, sheet pans, etc.) because we really like their gold-touch line, our knives because they ended up being as cheap there as on Amazon and we wanted to be able to use a completion discount if people don't buy them for us, flatware ($89 a place setting) because it was the only flatware we found that we loved and that wasn't made in china, korea, etc. and our everyday dishware (Apilco, $88 a place setting plus a few extra pieces like cereal bowls and bread plates) for much the same reason as our flatware. Both our flatware and dishware are made in France. We have inherited china and silver so we didn't register for that. Our glassware (Riedel Vinum) is on Amazon because it was cheaper there. We didn't register for super fancy crystal. We did 12 place settings of all of our tableware because we entertain a lot. We also registered for our ceramic bakeware (Emile Henry) on Amazon.com because it was cheaper and they had a great selection.

We already have all our bed linens and whatnot so we didn't register for those, but we did register for new towels. Our really big ticket items (over $200) were a 20 piece set of our dishware ($285) in case someone wanted to go that route (we also figured it would be a little cheaper for us to do that if no one got it for us and we wanted to complete our registry because there's a discount vs. individual place settings), the hostess set to our flatware ($239), a really nice digital picture frame to display our wedding & honeymoon photos ($239) and a nice pair of binoculars ($230). Our semi-big ticket items ($100 - $200) were a food processor ($180), a carving set ($130), a roasting pan ($130) and a pastry board ($130). Everything else was under a hundred dollars. We wanted to put a big range on there so that people could spend as much as they were comfortable with, especially in this economy.

It's also worth saying that we had a lot of our big ticket items already (cookware, kitchenaid mixer, etc.) so we didn't need to put that on the registry. If we needed more stuff like that we may have done a BB&B registry for things like linens & appliances.

I've been happy with both our registries so far, especially the ease of managing them online. The one issue that we have had with Williams-Sonoma is that stuff we registered for in store wasn't always on the website, which we thought would be annoying for guests who didn't live by a Williams-Sonoma store, and in order to remove them we had to call the customer service line. Not a big deal, though, and they took care of it immediately.

We were originally going to register at Crate and Barrel but ended up deciding not to because of their habit of discontinuing things. We wanted dishware that we could replace if we broke it.

 

[LtlFirecracker]

So far we did Williams-Sonoma and Potty Barn. I was going to do Macy''s, but there isn''t really that much more stuff I need. Most of our stuff is going to end up coming from Williams-Sonoma. It might be a little more expensive, but that is where I buy my cookware, so it makes since for me to register there. Also, whenever someone asks me for a cooking item as a gift, I always get it from there. I did that for my sister, and a year later she told me the pot was still like new despite their frequent use. I did make a point to register for a bunch of things in the lower price point. At pottery barn, all of the items are small things (frames, vases, ect).

 

[Iowa Lizzy]

We just registered this week at Bed Bath & Beyond and Target. We''re also going to do Crate & Barrel, I think. I''m kinda surprised I didn''t see more people registered at Target. Here in the Midwest, it''s pretty common.

We''re in our upper 20s and we already own a house together so we don''t really NEED that much stuff. Luckily, I have a little sister in college so she can have all my hand-me-downs for her apartment.

 

[megumic]

Date: 3/7/2010 10:05:55 AM
Author: LtlFirecracker
So far we did Williams-Sonoma and Potty Barn. I was going to do Macy''s, but there isn''t really that much more stuff I need. Most of our stuff is going to end up coming from Williams-Sonoma. It might be a little more expensive, but that is where I buy my cookware, so it makes since for me to register there. Also, whenever someone asks me for a cooking item as a gift, I always get it from there. I did that for my sister, and a year later she told me the pot was still like new despite their frequent use. I did make a point to register for a bunch of things in the lower price point. At pottery barn, all of the items are small things (frames, vases, ect).

LOL. This just made my day. I am the hugest cranky funk right now and I almsot fell over! So thank you

We registered at Williams-Sonoma and Macy''s. I think we may add Crate & Barrel, but not certain yet. While we don''t own a house yet, we have lived together for 1.5 years and I used to do work for Krups, so we have tons of kitchen appliances.

One thing we love about the Macy''s registry is that it alerts guests that we prefer them to "Go Green" and skip the gift wrap. It also saves them some green too!