On Wedding Registries

Yesterday Kate and I spent a couple of hours at Target going through our first take at registering for wedding gifts.  With the wedding industry becoming a $40 billion per year juggernaut, there’s some competition for our registry dollars, leading to some very helpful changes (I’m assuming) in wedding registration in recent years.

First, the stores themselves have improved the registering process: you get a little gun and walk shooting items like you’re playing a giant game of laser tag, only you’re the only person with a laser.  Once you select an item, a touch screen pops up where you can edit the quantity (Todd: “How many bath towels do we need?”  Kate: “I don’t know, 6?” Todd: “Kate, you use 6 bath towels in 2 days.”), or delete an item (Kate: “No, Todd, we can’t register for a $60 toilet seat cover.”).  These features were great while we were in the store.  It wasn’t until we got home that we realized the ‘delete’ feature rarely actually worked, and Target has employed a family of monkeys to actually organize the items they sell (for example: our bath towels showed up in the games section, while our hand towels showed up under kitchen).  Thankfully, it’s pretty simple to fix (though rather time-consuming).

Second, the stores now give you gifts, just for showing up.  For example, at Target, if you register for a certain amount of various brands, you get bonus items of that brand for free.  The week after your wedding, everything on your registry is 10% off.

Third, and this one is legitimately genius, the big box stores now provide registry guides and checklists.  These come in handy when trying to answer the questions: “What constitutes the necessary items in a knife set?” or “How many turkey basters should one own?”

Below is a sampling of items we considered yesterday:

1.  The Shake Weight – AKA the most awkward-looking fitness device I’ve ever seen.  I love when infomercial products become so popular that stores start carrying them (see, e.g., the Snuggie, the Sham-Wow, and the Chia Pet).  Although I’m not sure how the business model works there — with informercials, you make a ton of money by charging exorbitant shipping rates.  Obviously, you can’t do that while selling your product at Target.  I guess the exposure alone must be enough.  No, we did not actually register for this.

Now just $19.95 (plus S&H)!

2.  Guess Who? True story: Kate and I nearly broke up over a game of Guess Who?.  For those of you who have played, you know that once you figure out the basic strategy (selecting the most common groups at the beginning, and then narrow it down), Guess Who? is a game of chance.  However, a few years ago I figured out a very clever strategy that has led me to claim myself as the greatest Guess Who? player of all time.  I’m not going to divulge my secrets, but let’s just say that I employed the strategy against Kate, defeated her, and she was furious.  She thinks it is cheating (which it certainly is not), I think it is strategic.  Thankfully, our relationship recovered – but we’ve never played Guess Who? again, so Kate wouldn’t let me register for this either.

3.  Mr. Coffee Optimal Brew Thermal Coffee Maker.  One of the 2 or 3 items (out of 50) that we registered for that I’m legitimately excited about.

4.  Turkey Roaster.  Someone told Kate that it is important to register for everything you will need to cook Thanksgiving dinner.  While this may have been good advice 25 years ago, it is a bit outdated.  First, these items will take up space in what is likely to be a cramped kitchen, wherever we live after we get married.  Second, if, someday, we are cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we can borrow the equipment from our families (who, presumptively, will be coming over for Thanksgiving dinner, unless 28 years of tradition breaks).  Third, and most importantly, it doesn’t fit with my newly created (and still being tweaked) “10 Times in 10 Years” rule: If we are not likely to use the items at least 10 times over the course of the next 10 years (excluding single/limited use items), we are not registering for it.  Seems like a reasonable rule to me.  What do you think?