Gift registries

I wish it were still the weekend, but at least we were productive!

Saturday we went up to Dillard's and created our gift registry there. Since I pretty much did our registry at Crate and Barrel online and by myself, I wanted Chris to come up with me for this one so he could add his input too. It was kind of fun, but at the same time I felt aware that this was stuff that we were basically asking others to buy for us, which made me feel a little weird! I felt bad if I thought something was expensive, or if it wasn't something that we really needed. But, like the Crate and Barrel registy, we will get 20% off whatever is left on our registry after the wedding - so some of the more expensive things we can go back and buy later (like our coffee table!).

The other prevailing thought going through my head was "Should I ask for this? Will I ever really use a bundt pan?? What the hell should I put on the registry??" I felt kind of clueless. Should I ask for fancy expensive wine goblets?? Our IKEA ones work fine. But I did, just because they may be nice to have when we entertain. Which brings up another point - exactly how many plates do you need?? I have a Mikasa pattern now (that Dillard's still carries) of which I have 8 big plates (but not the salad plates, so I added those to the registry). But if we have my family over, or his, that's not quite enough. It's very rare, but it's happened. So we registered for more. Now I might have 16 big plates after the wedding. With 16 plates at our disposal, we won't have to do dishes very often.

Silverware?? My parents just gave me a pretty nice set before I met Chris, and I like the pattern. Not sure if Dillard's carries it or not - so do I toss them and get all new, or try to match it as close as possible?? We'll need those extra forks and knives if we use all the sixteen plates.....

Pots and pans?? Well, those we really do need. The non-stick on ours is starting to come unstuck. That's bad. But pots and pans can be expensive! I'd really like the large pot with the lift out steamer/pasta pot. But at $80, will somebody realistically buy it for me?? Same with the Dutch oven. I've loved the enamel coated cast iron cookers for years - you can put them in the oven, you can put them on the stove, and they make an attractive serving dish. But they're not cheap either. The one at Crate and Barrel is $109, and the one at Dillard's is $129!

We added smaller things as well. There are several cool serving dishes we added - some were $10.99, up to $29.99. We added towels. The previously mentioned bundt pan, along with some muffin pans, and cookie sheets are pretty inexpensive too. There's a pretty nice spice rack and a salt mill/pepper grinder duo. And don't forget the placemats and tablecloths.

So now we are all registered up! Chris wants to either register at Best Buy or Lowe's as well, which I'm letting him pick whichever one he wants. There again, he asked me last night "I think I'm going to choose Best Buy. What am I supposed to register for at Lowe's?" I told him a new ceiling fan would be nice (ours is a relic of the '80's), maybe some lumber and nails..... It made him smile a little. ;-) Really, at either place he's hoping for gift cards because what he'd like to buy will cost more money than what he is comfortable asking for.

There were a couple of other exciting things going on this weekend, but I'm saving them for another post! I'll have to be sure to post a picture of our VERY FIRST WEDDING GIFT, a beautiful Waterford caraffe/decanter from Dillard's (for using them for our registry), which we found out later (online) was on clearance. Oh well, it's pretty, and is a sweet gesture. And it's useful.

Hope you all have a great Monday!