How to Create the Perfect Wedding Registry

Congratulations, you’re engaged! One of the best parts of wedding planning is getting to register for the gifts you would like. Today I’m sharing my tips for creating the perfect registry.

Andrew and I are just a couple weeks away from our big day! Wedding planning has been so much fun and I’ve really enjoyed every step of it.

Besides the fact that it’s fun to pick out items that you need and want for your new life together, I think that it’s also a really good thing to do together while you are engaged. It’s a chance to learn a lot about each other’s likes, dislikes and preferences. It’s interesting to see what is really important to a person or what they don’t care about as much.

Fortunately Andrew and I have pretty similar tastes, so we both agreed on a lot of items. There weren’t a lot of things we had to compromise on.

Step 1: Take Inventory

If you are anything like Andrew and me, you probably have some items for your home already. I had moved back in with my parents to save some money, but still had some kitchen items from my old apartment. Before getting started, I took some time to make a list of everything I already had.

Even if you already have a lot of stuff, think about what could be upgraded. Andrew already had a lot of bath towels but they were old and worn out, so we registered for new ones. Maybe you have a vacuum but it isn’t working as well anymore.

Step 2: Make a List

I’m definitely a Type A organized person, so it would stress me out to just go into the store to register with no idea what we needed or wanted! I spent some time thinking about the essential items we would need and made a list to guide us as we registered.

Before you hit the store to register, take some time to talk about both of your preferences for style and colors. It can save so much time to already have an idea for what color or theme you want for each room of the house.

Consider your lifestyle and be realistic when you decide what you want to register for. I’m a food blogger so I love to cook and do a lot of it. Because of this, I registered for a lot of kitchen items. If you never cook, you don’t need all the fancy tools and gadgets. Just register for the essentials and use most of your registry for other items that will be more useful.

Step 3: Decide Where to Register

We registered at Target and Bed Bath and Beyond. I highly recommend registering at both of these places! We found that Bed Bath and Beyond was a lot more expensive for a lot of things, so we ended up putting a lot of stuff on our Target registry instead. Bed Bath and Beyond is a great place to register for more expensive items like a KitchenAid mixer or a bedding set, since people can get the 20% off coupons.

The nice thing about these two stores is that (a) they have them just about everywhere and (b) your guests can order items online. It’s much easier for your guests to shop at these stores than a smaller store that might not be in their area.

We had originally planned to register at Crate and Barrel as well, but we decided against it for a couple of reasons. First, we had already made two trips to register and didn’t want to take the time to do another trip. Second, we had been planning to put specialty items that we didn’t mind not getting on Crate and Barrel, but found that we needed so much stuff for our new house! We didn’t want to have people buy items we didn’t really need instead of going to Target or Bed Bath and Beyond and getting stuff we needed.

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Step 4: Take Your Time!

One of the best pieces of advice I got in terms of registering is that you shouldn’t expect to do it all in one trip! Take it slow and don’t worry about finishing in one day. That will just stress you out!

We took one trip to Bed Bath and Beyond first. I’m not sure if all locations are this way, but they had one of their employees go around the store with us to “help” us register. If I went again, I would ask to just do it ourselves. It was hard to think and talk about what we wanted and needed with someone else trying to input their suggestions. We also found that he steered us toward the more expensive brands.

A couple weeks later we went to Target. We ended up switching some of the items we had registered for at Bed Bath and Beyond to our Target registry. For example, the towels at Bed Bath and Beyond were way more expensive! The towels at Target were just as good of quality and they had colors we liked better.

Step 5: Finish Online

Don’t worry about making sure you remember everything when you are at the store registering. As you remember items you forgot, you can go online and add them.

This was also very helpful for us because we didn’t have our house when we registered. Once we bought it and knew how many bathrooms we had and other specifics, we were able to go online and change how many towels we registered for and add other items we needed.

After the Showers & Wedding

After each shower, be sure to go online and make sure that everything updated properly. I’ve noticed that Target in particular seems to have a bit of a delay in updating when someone purchased a gift. After each shower I went online and made sure that the items that had been purchased were marked correctly.

Our wedding is still a couple weeks away, and there are some bigger items that haven’t been purchased yet. We’ve gotten a few gift cards, though, so we are planning to save them until after the wedding. Some stores give you discounts on whatever is left on your registry (for example, at Bed Bath and Beyond we will get 20% off our entire purchase), so we will take the gift cards in and buy the bigger items that are left.

Are you getting married soon? What are some of the items you registered for? Already married? What are your tips for creating the perfect registry?

Next… learn 5 great way to save money on wedding food!