After my “About My Wedding” post a few days ago, I’ve received several emails asking what I’d change about my registry. (I had no idea registries were such a hot topic.)

I’m kinda squeamish about registries. The idea of telling my guests what to give me still makes me a bit uncomfy. I know, as a guest, they’re tremendously helpful. (As an aside, some of the gifts we loved the most were not on our list at all.)

Registries are a tricky thing because you’re selecting items that are in season now that are supposed to fit into your lifestyle/decor/living space for years to come. Unless you have a crystal ball, there’s no way you’ll be able to predict what your housewares and decor styles/needs will be in X years from now. And that’s ok. Pick what you love right now and enjoy the gifts.

What We Did Right

There are some things from our registry that we absolutely hit a run with. We’re still using our Anolon cookware and Henckels cutlery, 7 years after our wedding. Extremely satisfied with both. Our Kitchen Aid blender has served us well. Glass and metal mixing bowl sets from Crate & Barrel have been terrific and sturdy.

What We Would’ve Changed

• Cut back on the gadgets. We have more doohickies and thingamajigs than you can shake a whisk at. I love gadgets but we ended up with a lot of specialty tools that we don’t use and that are taking up precious space in our small apartment (or that were never used and donated to Goodwill).
• Cut out a lot of frivolous stuff. Related to the point above, we put things on our registry that we really didn’t need but added anyway because they were (a) at low prices points, (b) they looked cool, or (c) because they were on a list of “must haves” that we got from some wedding magazine or wherever. (This includes gadgets, duplicates sets of anything, special glassware, bar stuff, linens, decorative kitchen stuff …)
• Added more basic-but-pretty serving dishes. We entertain far more than we ever thought we would and had to add a lot of serving stuff to our supplies very quickly post-wedding.
• Never, ever asked for any vases. We ended up with 15 or 16 billion of them. (A slight exaggeration.)
• Put a registry for charity somewhere. I don’t remember if places like the I Do Foundationexisted in 2000, but I sure would’ve created a way for our guests to donate charitably. My DH just reminded me we did ask for donations to the cancer society as an option in lieu of gifts. No one did donate (that we’re aware of.)

Those are the major things we learned soon after the wedding that we would’ve changed. The short answer is we would’ve edited the list to our most basic needs and things that we absolutely lusted for that fit into our space and lifestyle. If we could’ve had that crystal ball we would’ve added a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, some quality tools for the grill, and some basic linens that could be transitioned from season-to-season. For non-household stuff, we would’ve registered for camping/outdoor gear.

Not earth-shattering, uber-fascinating info, is it? But you asked and, well, there ya go.