I Registered for WHAT? Amazon Wedding Registry Story

The wedding registry advice I wish someone had given me.

Okay, girl to girl, I did my wedding registry completely wrong.

Not wrong wrong. We got married, we received incredibly generous gifts, and nobody was harmed in the making of my registry. 😂 But looking back, I made the whole thing so much harder than it needed to be.

When I got engaged, the advice was pretty standard. You registered somewhere affordable for the everyday things, like Target, and then somewhere a little nicer, like Crate & Barrel, for the good stuff. So that's exactly what I did.

And I was SO excited about it.

I had this vision of walking around the store with that little scanner gun going click, click, click while imagining our future life together. I was going to find the perfect champagne flutes and beautiful sheets and a tablecloth that my someday-family would gather around for holidays. Apparently getting engaged was going to instantly transform me into a woman who hosted beautiful dinners and understood thread count.

It was fun for approximately one aisle.

Then it got overwhelming.

Did I want white dishes or cream dishes? How many towels does a married couple need? Which knives are good? Do I need a gravy boat? Have I ever made gravy? Am I planning to become someone who makes gravy?

I was standing there trying to shop for a house I didn't have yet and a future version of myself I hadn't met yet. Instead of asking, “What would we actually love to have?” I started asking, “What are we supposed to register for?”

Those are two VERY different questions.

By the time my bridal shower came around, our friends and family had been incredibly generous, and I was opening things that I had personally chosen while occasionally thinking, Why did I register for this?

I'd also read some blog that suggested registering for a couple versions of certain things to give people options. So, naturally, I took that advice entirely too seriously. Now I had multiples, things that didn't really go together, and things I didn't actually have anywhere to put.

Then I decided to get organized. This went well.

As things were purchased, I started deleting them from my registry because in my mind I was cleaning everything up. Look at me! So organized! Except when I needed to return a few gifts, I had made it significantly harder to figure out what had been purchased from where.

So there I was, surrounded by stuff I had asked people to buy me, wondering why I'd asked them to buy it, while simultaneously making it harder to return.

Past Michaelene was thriving.

If I were registering today, I would do it completely differently.

For starters, I wouldn't try to finish my registry in a day.

This is probably the biggest thing I wish someone had told me. You don't need to figure out your entire future household on a Saturday afternoon. You also don't need to register for something simply because some wedding checklist says newlyweds are supposed to own it.

This is one of the reasons I think an Amazon Wedding Registry makes so much sense now. When I got married, having multiple registries helped cover different price points and types of products. Amazon basically gives you that range in one place. You can have the inexpensive everyday thing sitting next to the beautiful sheets you've been eyeing, the practical household stuff, the travel gear, and the wildly optimistic item you're fairly certain nobody is going to buy.

And, girlfriend, put the wildly optimistic thing on there.

You're not demanding someone buy it for you. You're just giving people choices. Maybe nobody touches it. Maybe someone wants to go in on it with three other people. Maybe you have an Aunt Linda who wakes up on the morning of your bridal shower feeling unusually generous.

Let Aunt Linda cook.

More importantly, I would start the registry and then just... live my life.

If we're making dinner one Thursday night and realize we don't own a decent baking dish, I'd add one. If we stay somewhere and become irrationally attached to the pillows, I'd look them up. If my fiancé mentions for the fifth time that he wants a pizza oven, onto the registry it goes.

And if we'd already lived together for years and owned perfectly good dishes, I wouldn't register for another set of dishes just because apparently marriage requires ceremonial new plates.

Your registry doesn't have to look like mine. That's kind of the point.

Maybe you're moving into your first house together and genuinely need everything. Maybe you've lived together for five years and the LAST thing you need is another kitchen appliance. Maybe you camp every weekend. Maybe you're renovating. Maybe you're travelers. Maybe your dream Saturday involves your backyard and a pizza oven rather than hosting a dinner party with fine china.

Register for that life.

There's also one Amazon perk I really wish I'd known to think about.

Amazon offers a completion discount on eligible items associated with qualifying Wedding Registries, subject to its current terms. So when you're adding things, don't only think about what you believe your guests will actually buy.

If there's something you genuinely want for your life together but you think, Nobody is going to buy us that, I'd still consider putting it on the registry. If nobody buys it, depending on Amazon's current eligibility rules, it may be something you can purchase yourselves using the completion discount.

That changes the way I'd build my registry entirely.

I wouldn't fill it with random things just for the sake of having a giant registry. I'd use it almost like a running list for our future. Some things are $15. Some things are $150. Maybe there's something ridiculous on there that costs way more than that.

Again, Aunt Linda.

Mostly, I would stop trying to register for Future Fantasy Me.

That's what I wish I could tell engaged me.

You don't have to know what your house is going to look like yet. You don't have to know whether you're going to host Thanksgiving. You definitely don't need to know whether Future You prefers cream china.

You're allowed to build this slowly.

Put things on there that make sense for the two of you now. Add things as you think of them. Change your mind. Take things off. Talk about what you're excited to do together after the wedding and let that guide what belongs on the list.

Because you're not actually registering for your wedding.

You're registering for the life that happens after it.

And that's the part I wish I'd been thinking about when I had that scanner gun in my hand.

If you're newly engaged and haven't started yours yet, you can create an Amazon Wedding Registry here.

START YOUR AMAZON WEDDING REGISTRY

And please, for me, think twice before adding the gravy boat.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn from qualifying purchases and may receive a bounty when an eligible reader creates a qualifying Amazon Wedding Registry through my link. It doesn't cost you anything extra.