I wouldn’t even bother registering except for two things: most of our friends and family haven’t seen our house except in pictures(oh, the joys of a pre-wedding interstate move!), and I’m afraid of my family’s taste.
There’s a lot of stuff we’d like to have for the house that we’ll eventually get around to buying, but our families want to get some of that stuff for us. The easiest way to do it is for us to find stuff that will go in our house, and register for it. That way we don’t wind up with stuff that goes with one thing and clashes with everything else in the room.
Besides, there’s no telling what my family would buy us. A lot of them seem to be under the impression that I’m perpetually 10 years old. (I admit I often act like an overgrown 10yo, but that’s beside the point. Tastes change over 16 years, even if behavior doesn’t.) In the last nine months I have received as gifts from close relatives the following: a pink fairy decorative lamp, a brass and glass unicorn lamp that Mom paid way too much for, and an enormous pink stuffed bunny. I’m 26 and haven’t decorated my room with unicorn stuff in 15 years or so, and I never collected fairy anything.
In short, with my family, we’d be really lucky to get crockpots and chafing dishes.
Yep, I’m the proud owner of one of those knife sets, from my husband’s grandmother. I actually do use the steak knives, and I occasionally use the others for stuff I wouldn’t want to use my good knives on (like when I can’t find the scissors to cut the excess stems off of flowers). But mostly they sit in their little knife block and take up space. I constantly use the Wusthof knives that we did register for, and that one of my father’s friends got us, though.
Umm, no, SaxFace, it’s not like treating your loved ones like ATMs. A lot of folks who aren’t just leaving home when they marry already have plenty of housewares and all the crystal clocks and picture frames they want or need. A registry is to provide suggestions for those who want them by listing things you’d like to have. If people are dead set on spending money on you, they can contribute to your honeymoon fund, or to your down payment on a house. A honeymoon registry is no more treating people like an ATM than registering for china and crystal you use once every five years.
But there’s a difference between not using the registry because you have a brilliant idea (or a good idea, or even just a gift lying around the house that you finally have occasion to get rid of), and not using the registry and whining at the bride to give you gift suggestions.
If I’m reading the OP right - the complaint is not as much about not using the registry and more about annoying the couple.
Exactly, amarinth! To be quite clear, only one of the gifts we received at the shower came from our registry. We still loved them, especially the friend who framed our weding invitation in a lovely silver frame.
I would like to get the gifts I choe for the registry, but that’s just a preference. What irks me is people ignoring the registry and bugging me to give them a list of gift ideas. Or bugging me to register somewhere else just for them.
