Slightly Off-kilter Registries

Man, it has been quite a week.  My hours were severely cut at work followed by daily schedule changes, I found out my dress may or may not have been altered without my consent (to answer your question Charlene, I haven't gone over to find out which yet), and we were rejected by grocery store florists across the land, all in the last 5 days.

And to make things busier, my future MIL came up to visit us yesterday.  While this is certainly not a bad thing like those mentioned above, it does take a certain amount of time away from dealing with said bad stuff.  Of course, at this point that may be the best thing for my sanity.

But even with all the stuff that's been going on, we did manage to get one thing accomplished this week:  all of our registries are officially a go.

Though we'll have several, the important one is our honeymoon registry.  I was surprised to find how few free ones are out there, but then I came across Honeyfund.com.  They are totally free and seem to be decently configured.  The only thing you pay for is the PayPal fee if your guests contribute that way, but it also gives the option of printing a sort of gift certificate thing and sending a check or cash.  I'll probably encourage people to do that, but regardless, it's nice to have options.

Of course, the big things we're putting on the registry are our airfare and accommodations, but we've been told people will contribute more if we put more tangible gifts on too, so we also included some excursions and luxuries like...

a trip up Dunn's River Falls (the go to adventure in Ocho Rios),

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scuba diving a wreck (life-long dream for me),

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and a couple's massage (because you know we'll need it after all the wedding craziness).

Mmmm, they look so happy!

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Hopefully, people will choose to contribute to our honeymoon, especially after I beg them, but for those who really want to give a tangible gift, we created a couple of other small registries.

Since we have limited space and the tendency to move often, we don't want much household stuff.  We can barely fit what we have now, and we just don't need much else at the moment.  However, there is one area where we both could do with some non-necessities:  the kitchen.  We like to cook, and while our kitchen is decently stocked, there are definitely items we'd like to add.

And so we created a registry at Sur la Table.  If you haven't heard of them, you're not alone.  They're a cooking store with all of the cooking stuff you could ever want.  We already enjoy moseying through whenever we come across one, so we figured this would be a good place for a registry.

And even though I'd be perfectly fine if everyone contributed to the honeymoon registry, I wouldn't exactly be disappointed if we got some of these:

 

Burn, Baby, Burn - mmmm, creme brulee

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I've wanted a hand-pumped vegetable chopper for YEARS!

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Um, how could you not want your bunt cakes to be shaped like castles?

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Our knives are pretty good, but we couldn't resist getting one super-sharp one.

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I swear we have useful stuff on our registry too, but it's just so much less fun to talk about.

Our Macy's registry is really small.  Really, really small.  So small that I'm wondering if we should just discard it altogether.  However, there were a few things we wanted that cannot be found at Sur la Table, and we literally created the Macy's registry because of 2 items:

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I have been in love with this china for years.  I saw it on some wedding site the first time we were engaged and haven't been able to get it out of my head.  I even have multiple friends with the same china, and I still want it.  Though I don't particularly want to store china, I definitely don't want to buy it myself, so I really hope someone helps us out with this one even though that's money away from the honeymoon.

That was my reason for wanting the Macy's registry, this was Daniel's:

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Ever since Daniel's cousin got married, and we chipped in to get them a good vacuum, Daniel has wanted someone to do the same for him.  We only have a small, crappy vacuum, so it would be really nice to get a good one like this.

There are a few other things on this registry, but those are the ones we care about.  Of course, it would probably be better if people didn't get them for us since they're expensive, and we'd rather have that money for the honeymoon.

We still need to streamline our "stuff" registries to maximize the appeal of the honeymoon one, but I'm glad we at least got them started.  With invitations almost ready to go out, we really needed to get this done.

Where did you register?  Why there?  Were any of your registries not-so-traditional like ours?

If Nirvana Needed Somewhere to Store Shit

For my first post from San Jose, it seemed only fitting to write about the huge, sprawling chain stores that characterize massive suburbs such as this.  In my case, the Container Store.

I have always been rather intrigued by this containment center for containers.  How would such a large store that sells only containers stay in business?

Well, Daniel and I visited one of these two-story monstrosities this weekend, and now I can say with utter confidence that I totally get it.

For those still in the shadows about the wonders of the Container Store, it is a magical place with a variety of containers for everything.  But it’s not all boxes, tubs, cabinets, and receptacles.  There are items you wouldn’t normally think of as containers but totally hold stuff, like a wall of hangars and a tie rack.

Say it with me now:  weeeeeeeee!

But there are also everyday household items that technically contain stuff but are really more just useful items like our new spice rack.

It folds down so you can store it somewhere high...

...and then pull it down to use it!  We totally have the perfect shelf for it:  high but no longer inaccessible.  Yes, I’m a little too excited.

We had a lot of fun looking at all the new and shiny objects around the store.  There were so many, and they were so cool and useful!  And there were some that were just fun.

 Giant bag of peanuts!  Heaven!  Made out of peanuts!
*All Personal Photos

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that this would be an awesome place to register if you need container-type stuff.  There were lots of things that we would have liked people to buy for us, like nice trash cans, file cabinets, kitchen stuff, various types of paper storage, wickery baskets for every occasion, and these cute containers for specific types of food, like hot dogs (with actual rounded ends for each hot dog, hehe).

It was reasonably priced, had better quality and more selection than Target, provided lots of options, patterns, and styles, and had a range of prices and qualities for most items that would allow a couple to tailor their selections to their and their guests’ needs.

Unfortunately, the last thing we need is more stuff, particularly stuff that would give us an excuse to acquire more stuff, so we will not be creating a Container Store registry.  Still, I bet a lot of couples could really use one.  And believe me, we’re sad that we don’t get one.

Did you register somewhere a little off the beaten path (i.e. not Target, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, or Macy’s)?  Where would you recommend couples register that they might not have thought of?