The Art of Registering -- by Ashley White

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Ashley White, our newlywed blogger, is back with a hilarious look at the art of registering...and why it's okay to know exactly what YOU want...

 Ashley & Gus White -- Photo by Ardent Photography, Laramie

What they don't tell you about registering is that you're supposed to take the number of guests you're inviting, multiply that by two, and register for that many things.

There we were, my then-fiancé Gus and I, kicked back in the sunken-in office just off the front doors of a home decor center; you know, the distinctly bride-friendly room, all frosted glass and scripty writing, an official-looking desk with a wall of expensive China behind it? And they're all, "Hi, you need to register for at least 300 things."

I get that the whole idea behind registries is to ask for the things you need/want, but for seriously. I go directly for clearance racks, do not pass go, when I shop for 90% of the things that I bring home. And here we are in this mecca of overpriced dishware, where I'm supposed to find 300 things I absolutely cannot survive my first year of marriage without?
The towels there suck, so already we're screwed. 

"Would you like to look at our luggage?"

Our bridal consultant—a chipper girl, all business in her button-down—passes a binder across the table, filled with laminated pages of ugly luggage for us to page through while she enters our info into the computer.

If I'm getting luggage, it's going to be fabulous; none of this blah-brown-boring nonsense. 

"How about the finer China?"

A recurring theme within our wedding planning seemed to be "Scandalizing the Nice Ladies Who Don't Understand Why." In the battle previous, we’d thoroughly horrified the Nice Lady at the jewelry store when we were pricing bands for my husband-to-be.

After I refused to be turned to dazzled putty by the array of over-blinged rings the saleslady kept parading past me, in between the bands for my then-almost-husband, she declared, "Do you even have any idea what kind of wedding band you want?" 

*raises left hand sparkler* "Just this one."

  "But.. but you HAVE to have a BAND!"

I could see her mind melting as I shook my head no, confirming that, ohmygod guys, I was not going to have a wedding band.

Oh, the scandal.

And when we registered for wedding gifts mere months before our October wedding, the trend continued.

"No, we're really not fine China kind of people," I’m telling our consultant.

And really, when I’m sitting there with a guy who has 2” holes in his earlobes… why are you assuming we want a side of fine China to go?

"But what about in the future, like when you have family over for Thanksgiving?"  she presses. 

"They'll be happy with whatever dishes we have around. I promise." 

Having successfully navigated through the treacherous forests of luggage & overpriced dishes, we were at last rewarded with the scanner; the coveted electronic, bestowing upon us the power to run madly through the store, beeping left and right at anything and everything that caught our fancy.

The first thing Gus scanned was me. 

We started on the side of the store where the bathroom decor/bedding lives, as we were advised to do by our button-down friend because "the kitchen gadgets and stuff really tend to overwhelm people."

The thing is, when you're not that person who can look at a $25 bathroom trash can and think, "Oh, how affordable!", registering is sort of a nightmare. I'm standing there, realizing that trash bags FOR aforementioned trash can are $15/pack, and thinking to myself, "This is sick, dude. I wouldn't buy this for myself, so why would I more or less be asking other people to buy it for me?"
Meanwhile, Gus is losing his mind, scanning shower heads (two, for the record) and gleefully aiming the scanner at choice parts of my body every so often.

By the time we'd successfully made our way around the entire store—& for the record, homegirl was right... that kitchen gadget section? INTENSE—it had been ninety minutes and we were seriously exhausted. The original plan to continue our registry adventures at Target? Axed.

For serious, we had the most random assortment of things on there. Highlights included this really cute beverage dispenser (quoth the future husband, "Won't this be cool to put on our patio someday, when we have a patio?"), Twist hair towels, The Windshield Wonder (because you can't deny its wonder; seriously, that's COOL), something like 7 different candles (including one in the flavor of "Sparkle," natch), a random set of $169 knives—oh, and quite possibly some Razzles, mini Toblerones, M&M's and dark chocolate Raisinets. Because I was all *haha jokingly scans them* and then it actually worked. So I kept not-so-jokingly going.

(By the way; every single piece of candy we scanned? We got it for our wedding. Score.)

Final total for our registry? 113.
Number of times the future husband scanned me? 7.

Ashley, I seriously laughed out loud when I read this! Levi & I were remembering our own phone call from a shop where we had registered, asking 'Are you SURE you want mismatched pottery?! You really should register for one style.' I thought the same thing -- 'No, I like mismatched pottery thank you! One style would get boring!' The scandal indeed! Thanks for sharing this -- just part of why it's important to speak up for yourself and what you want!

'Til next time...Make it Your Dream!

Kati Hime, Editor
editor@wyolifestyle.com

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