I have been planning my wedding a little over a year and have been taking in so much information from this site and others like it. So much has been on my mind in the year and I have been planning like crazy just like any other bride having a wedding during a pandemic. I am so excited to marry my FH in a few weeks and sometimes can barely fathom that it is even going to happen.
I always knew I wanted to be married, it is the thing I look forward to most (and value more than anything else). Getting married means the union of two people who love each other very much. That is the focus and purpose of being married. Anything less is borderline offensive to my romantic heart. But as things to do for my big day wind down, the nosy part of me, the part of me that wants to keep my brain stimulated and thinking has started to creep up.
I have registry stalked for as long as I remember, starting with my aunt's wedding in 2013. Seeing what she had registered for and thinking about the practicality of some things being added to a home, while also being deeply confused about what a food processor was, was fun for me! Weddings are great! As a developing teen I could really think more about what my own wedding would actually be like, and how in love and happy I would be on that day and how nothing more important could take place.
Yet, here was this strange custom staring back at me as intently as I was staring at it, a custom involving spending money on household items for a two people who probably already had the funds to afford things themselves. A well-wishing custom, yet a strange one. And subsequently as I aged into a materialistic part of the world, I felt complacent in the idea of asking friends for 50, 100, 150, 200 plus in items that may or may not garner any use. Items that might result in a pissing match between registrar and employee for copious amounts of store credit. All these material goods to be exchanged for a dry yet expensive meal and free-flowing alcohol.
As I aged as well I developed a weird habit. I started keeping track of how much friends and family received from their registry. At first it was difficult, keeping track of everything at the bridal shower on the down low so no one would question what I was doing, then looking these items up (oh the frustration of not understanding expensive wine tumblers) at home well after I was meant to be asleep brought me a strange sense of satisfaction. Like I got to peek into their personal lives, like I get to know just how many people cared enough to spend money on them. The added bonus of hearing the drama of that one aunt who cheaped out on mixing sets and ex lovers buying a targeted gift for the now bride or groom made it all the more spicy.
As online registries really picked up (Zola, TheKnot, BBB, and Amazon you are all gems) it made it all the more easy to spy on people I know. Ohhh cousin Devon and his woodsy girlfriend Kaylee got engaged? 'Devon Smith and Kaylee Doe wedding registry' would be typed into Google faster than you could say "Congratulations!"
I started in March 2018 with a word document I kept on my phone and work computer, emailing back and forth to myself updates and changes as couples added more items, their total dollar amounts received ticked upwards, and as more and more people I knew got married. When the pandemic started and my list literally doubled in 6 months I graduated to an Excel spreadsheet. There I was able to expand on my information hoarding by keeping track of the number of items, sales as they occurred on each site, total amounts being asked from each couple, and amounts of things and cost of items actually received. (I think the most offensive amount I saw was from a distant relative who, despite having parents who were paying for a 50,000 dollar wedding, asked for 15,000 in registry items from their friends and family. It was kind of delicious seeing at the end of that crapshoot they received less than 3 grand of what they asked for and over half the family did not go.)
One of my favorite stories is two former friends of mine registered for 7,000 dollars in items on Amazon that they already had in their apartment, and exchanged everything they could for camping equipment and a new couch. Boy was I glad to have given them a Target gift card.
My list is 35 couples long over the course of 3 years and two more couples got engaged this past month who have yet to register. I check every day to see if their wedding website has popped up yet. It is quite literally an obsession.
I, given my obviously unhealthy relationship with keeping track of other people, elected to not have an online registry. Yet despite a pandemic and a lack of ease in providing registry information, I have found from watching my own registry and getting ready to write thank you notes I have received more than anyone else I know who have gotten married in the past 3 years bar none. 9,000 dollars in gifts. And my wedding is still a month away.
I keep struggling to add things, as I have seen on here and other forums, you shouldn't have a slim pickings registry close to your wedding. There has to be somethings on there more than a 400 dollar espresso machine and a 7 dollar garlic press. Varied price points are your friend ladies. I haven't even counted the cash or gift cards (saving it all to pay off my honeymoon, that was the only thing I put on a card.)
My bizarre obsession and strange behavior somehow has been rewarded, and yet honestly? I am not nearly as fulfilled with it as I thought I would be. I kept adding things at the bequest of my mother in law and grandmother, and at one point stopped thinking realistically. Though now I am not sure what I am going to do with 6 different kinds of blenders or where I am going to put all these knick-knacks in my 750 square foot apartment.
I keep dropping hints to my newly engaged friends about when they are getting married, I am still completely overwhelmed by the fact I get to marry my best friend in a few weeks, and I am sad that I have to have a Zoom wedding instead of having all my friends and family close to me on a day that means more to me than anything in the world. The amount of money I have gotten, the sheer generosity of those who are close to me and my fiancé can never be thanked enough. It really made me stop and pause about the importance of it all. I have benefitted hugely from partaking in this still strange custom, more so than literally anyone I know. But the whole thing still doesn't mean much to me. In the end it really is about the social charge I get from it all, the pride and happiness I feel for my friends, and the laughs I get tsk'ing away at an "artisanal copper pour over coffee" device for $185.
I will keep punching away at my calculator, reading Brides on my coffee break, and looking up good places to donate appliances and extra bath towels. Because really? How much stuff does one person need?
