Wedding Registry Ideas: Where Are They Now?

Oh the Wedding Registry. Over the last 10 years, things have changed. When we started the registry, we built it with practicality at the foundation. While we were building our registry at Macy’s and Bed Bath and Beyond (RIP and hello again), we were encouraged to “throw everything we could scan on there”.  I went to locate our registries to remind myself what we selected, but they’ve been lost to the internet coffins. Not to fear! I can figure out most of our registry by looking around the house.

I circled back with a few trusted sources like The Knot (glad to see you’re still around), Macy’s, and the New York Times, to see what the guidelines are today. Macy’s has a great checklist to follow. Honestly, I’m a little surprised to see SO MUCH on it, including some surprises like an air purifier, a grill, and a wine fridge. I thought millennials killed wine? I appreciate the New York Times’ practical and forward thinking approach to building a registry. This list didn’t have too many surprises, other than the dinner bell…

And then I was able to login into my account at The Knot. I’d say their list is a nice mix of somewhere in between Macy’s and Times. Practical, yet splurgy, but not too splurgy. Looking around the kitchen section they pretty much hit all the essentials.

Is it weird or am I getting old? Over these last few weeks, I just started noticing all the things we have and saying, “oh my gosh, this is 10 years old!”

When should you make a wedding registry?

Short answer: before you send out any shower and/or wedding invites. You’ll want to have your registry completed by the time you send any communication about your wedding (shower or the wedding itself). Sometimes the most common question will be, “Where are you registered?” The industry will tell you 4-6 months before your wedding, which aligns to any save-the-dates and invitations.

Wedding Registry Ideas: Where Are They Now?

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At the end of the day, your registry makes up what is important to you. So put on that ice maker and wine fridge! Actually, the ice maker is a great idea. We love to be in the kitchen, so you’ll see our list is heavier in that area.

I’m really happy with our registry. There are clear winners as these items have stood the test of time in quality, functionality, and style. If I had to tune out all the fluff, this list boils down to our must-haves if we were to do this all over again. See these items and more on our registry on Amazon!

Cooking and Baking

• KitchenAid stand mixer
  • I loved my mom’s KitchenAid growing up. It got us through so many baking events, holidays, and cookie baking nights. Glad we added this to our list. Today, I’d totally go for “pistachio”.
• Calphalon contemporary 10 piece cookware set
  • If it’s not dishwasher safe, then I will most likely not be buying your product. These are dishwasher safe! Not that I dump these pots and pans in the dishwasher every time, but I want the option for when I’m tired haha. These pots and pans have been through it and continue to function. A few years ago, two of them started flaking, so we got rid of them. We weren’t using the whole set, so two more came out of storage. I’d totally get these again as a starter set.
• Baking sheets with cooling racks
  • I originally had a set of the quarter sheets. I loved the durability of them, so I added these to the registry. The cooling racks are oven safe, which makes this is a perfect bundle. Make sure you add two to your registry.
• KitchenAid Mixing bowls, set of three
  • Our registry was full of Martha Stewart products. I love the mixing bowls we have and they’re still with us. I can’t find the original ones we ordered, but these KitchenAid ones are near identical.
• Calphalon knife set
  • This is a basic starter set for your registry. I know there are higher quality sets out there, so do your research. These matched the “contemporary” style of the pots and pans and are really good quality. Our knives are still with us today and are used and washed daily, if not 3+ times a day!
• KitchenAid blender
  • We have the KitchenAid 5-Speed Diamond Blender which is no longer available (which makes me scared for when the one we have dies). This newer design is a great option if we have to get a new one…
• KitchenAid ice cream maker
  • Truthfully, we’ve made ice cream just a handful of times. Making ice cream is hard work and not for everyone. But we have a lot of fun with this when we remember we have it!

Serving and Eating

• Tall and short glasses
  • We love the simplicity and modern design of these glasses. They make great cocktail glasses as well!
• Margarita glasses
  • A Marquisrita is iconic. I love the height and size of these glasses. I will always remember who gifted these to us – my aunt Holly and uncle Dave – and I will try to hang onto them as long as I can. For stemless, these look cool.
• Noritake Colorwave Stoneware dining set
  • I’d buy these over and over again. They’re simple, durable for everyday use, and we love the color. We also love the yellow color and we almost bought another set to mix and match.
• Mikasa satin flatware
  • A great starter set. I love the clean design and satin finish on the handles. These have been going strong for ten years dish wash after dish wash. I’d buy these again for sure.
• Kate Spade cake knife set
  • Is a cake knife, just a cake knife? At the end of the day, yes. What makes this one special? It’s engraved with Mr. and Mrs. for a little wedding flair. Whenever I pull this out of the drawer, I’m always reminiscing about our wedding.

Miscellaneous

• Drying rack
  • This helped us out so much when we were in our city apartments. Today, we still whip it out around Thanksgiving or when we’re cooking through a few photo shoots.
• Drying mats
  • I can’t believe we still have these today. They should probably be replaced by now because we use these every single day. They’ve gone through the laundry hundreds of times. (Link is to an updated product as The Original drying mats are hard to find).

Upgrades and Additions

Since the wedding, we’ve collected more stuff and I think these would be worth adding to a registry today:

• Geometry kitchen towels
  • Our Martha Stewart kitchen towels were some of THE BEST kitchen towels we’ve had. They absorbed water so nicely when drying dishes. We wore them out until holes formed. Today we use Geometry kitchen towels–great designs and also highly absorbent.
• Nutribullet Pro
  • The basic Nutribullet was on our registry and we LOVED it. Knowing how often I use it today, I would have upgraded our selection to the pro series. Our original one died a few years in and we replaced it with a Pro.
• Le Creuset Dutch Oven
  • We did not have this on our registry…not sure why. The one we use today, we use ALL THE TIME. I’d add this to a registry today, however, we one at HomeGoods with a heavy discount.
• Glass food storage
  • How did we forget this one? We prefer glass containers to avoid the pasta tint.
• Food processor
  • I picked up a tiny one when I hit a five year work anniversary at my last company. It’s a dinky little one, and I’d rather get this one.
• BEIS Luggage
  • We splurged for BEIS a few years ago and LOVE it all. We didn’t have luggage on our registry initially, but I’d totally add it today.
• Champagne flutes
  • We didn’t have these on our initial list, but we recently acquired these gorgeous glasses.

Second thoughts

• Place settings
  • We’ve used these maybe five times since. We recently found a great set at HomeGoods.
• Bedding
  • We ended up returning our initial selection to upgrade a few of our other products. A few years ago, we refreshed our sheets from Brooklinen and love them.
• Turkey roasting pan
  • We used this for the first time about five years ago. We’re the only meat eaters at Thanksgiving, so maybe we didn’t need this. However, it’s a great pan when we use it (and it was likely a package deal with the pots and pans). If you’re planning to host Thanksgiving for meat eaters, definitely keep this on your registry!

Which wedding registry is best?

There are so many registry hosting platforms and stores. Where’s the best place to host a wedding registry? Well, each has their own perks and rewards.

• Amazon, like their baby registry, has a completion discount (20% for wedding).
• Macy’s wedding registry has a completion discount, but it’s a variable 10-20%. However, it was helpful to see the products in person. Scanning the products to your registry was also really exciting.

At the time, we couldn’t find everything on Amazon like we can today and not everyone was an Amazon subscriber like they are today, so we used a combination of Macy’s and Amazon. If I were creating one today, I’d probably stick to one registry for the majority of our items to get that completion discount.

Sometimes you won’t be able to add everything, like a honeymoon cash fund. The Knot offers a registry experience to help aggregate a bunch of different sites to one place. We used The Knot to do just that (bring Amazon, Macy’s, and Bed Bath and Beyond to one place).