Reviewing the Registries

We ultimately registered at three places - Bed Bath and Beyond, Bloomingdale's, and MyRegistry.com - and here is my review of the process so far.



MyRegistry.com
The Good:
We liked MyRegistry.com because it lets guests contribute cash gifts that are then linked through your PayPal account. We named our cash bucket our House Fund, which, to be honest, is really where any of those gifts will go. We also use MyRegistry.com for something a little bit off center and registered for wines and spirits at wine.com.

The Bad:
We thought we would use MyRegistry.com for everything, except that it doesn't automatically update what is still needed versus what has been fulfilled. It gives you a friendly pop up that says after you purchase, please update the list, but then that leaves an extra step for guests. There was the risk that we would end up with multiples of the same thing and we'd be under the mercy of each vendor's return policy. We also didn't like that there is a service charge for cash gifts, but it's not that much.

Bed Bath and Beyond
The Good:
Super Low Maintenance. We set up our registry online and we went to the store, got a 2 minute tutorial on how to use the gun, and then were set on our way. We got to do everything our way and everything we needed was in the store. The selection is also pretty good.

The Bad:
Not all in-store items are available online, so we had to go online and edit our list for things that are readily available online. I didn't want to force people to actually go to the store to get the gift. Also - a lot of the things we liked were seasonal and will likely not be available in the next few months.

Bloomingdale's
The Good:
The fine china and flatware selection is really great. The everyday sets were also pretty nice, but we had those ready at BB&B. We decided to do the really fancy things at Bloomingdale's so we were prepared for the increase in price, but we could find a lot of choices that were within a reasonable amount.

The Bad:
Oh dear Lord, did they ever give a speech on how to register. Bloomingdale's is just a higher end store and so everything was geared towards that. We really didn't feel comfortable registering for anything greater than 500 dollars, I know that people might chip in and buy one big thing, but we just didn't feel comfortable registering for something that cost that much and frankly wasn't important to us at all. We were sitting in the registry office for about 30 minutes before we could go and register, and we had to listen to our guy talk about what price ranges were acceptable for showers and wedding (which I thought ludicrous, by the way). Also - the nice china I liked in the store was not available online, so we had to edit that as well.


All in all, not a painful experience, a little bit fun also. Except I hadn't broken in my shoes yet that I bought for MonkeyGirl's wedding so I had blisters and was hobbling around Bloomie's.