Whoever said gift registries were easy was talking about the buyers, not the setter-uppers

Last Saturday I convinced the Fiance to postpone saving the world for a couple hours (sometimes I really regret that Xbox 360 purchase) and come with me to The Bay to set up a gift registry.

I used to not be a fan of wedding gift registries. I think this is largely due to having been brought up to be modest and humble and never ask for anthing and above all, be careful what you do because WHAT WOULD PEOPLE THINK? Jury’s still out on who these omipotent “People” are. Maybe it’s a Polish thing.

But over the past couple of years I’ve started to change my mind. I’ve used registries myself a couple of times and I liked it because it was fast and, what’s more, EASY. But I don’t love registries. I still feel weird about buying my cousin that set of kitchen stuff (oven mitts, floor mat, tea towels, etc.) with that coffee cup motif on it because I’ve never seen it in her house. I mean, I don’t blame her, I thought it was sort of ugly myself, but if it was on there she must’ve wanted it, right? It makes me feel like I wasted my money. Maybe it’s my fault for not getting to the registry before all the ‘good’ stuff was gone. Anyways, I digress. I understand why people want to buy off a registry and so I understand why people would set one up.

But love registries or not, I actually didn’t think it was even an issue for us because we’re having a destination wedding. I mean, we’re already asking people to spend so much to be there with us - their presence is presents enough! (Wow, good one, Miss P!)

However, I hadn’t accounted for the people who wouldn’t be coming to the wedding. We’ve already had a few people enquire about where we were registered. And so while I still feel we don’t need gifts, I know some people will want to buy them anyway and since they seem to prefer the registry route, I’d like to provide that option.

There aren’t a lot of choices for registries here in Canada so I decided we’d just go to The Bay. Having recently been inspired by a post by the Weddingbee’s Miss Shortcake on their super successful registry trip, I figured, hey, it’ll be a breeze!

Well, let’s just say ours was not so successful.

Maybe it’s because the registry person Carmen got us off on the wrong foot by wasting almost 45 minutes of our time NOT, as I expected, giving us a checklist and a tour and some useful information, but rather, trying to convince us to sign up for an Hbc credit card. Because you know, if you find a great deal like today–buy one set of cutlery and the second is 50% off–you can take advantage of the deal and not wait for someone else to buy it for you, and you get 10% off the second one for signing up on the card (sidenote: um, wouldn’t I ask for 10% off the one I paid full price for??). The fact that we are setting up a very minimalist registry for the few guests that will use the registry and that we’ve been living together for almost 2 years now and don’t need a lot of things and we have enough credit cards which offer useful things like extended warranties that the Hbc card doesn’t fell on deaf ears. I’m positive she must get a commission for credit card sign-ups. Oh, and did I mention she was a sslllloooooowwwwww ttaaaaaaaaaaalllkeeerrrrrrrrrrr???

I was annoyed before we even got started.

We finally got the SKU gun in our hot little hands and sallied forth into the land of housewares but not before exchanging pleasantries with another couple who were returning their gun. Sorry, did I say pleasantries? It was more like the guy caught my guy’s eye and gave him the “good-luck-buddy-you’re-gonna-need-it” sign to which mine replied “Can’t we just take your list and copy it?”. They laughed and said, “Sure, you can have it but it’s pretty pathetic. And this is our third time here.”

Third time? Yikes!!

It didn’t take too long for us to understand why they were warning us. Our first stop was china, where we spent almost an hour… and ended up not choosing anything.

“I need to think about this some more, we’ll come back to it.” And that, folks, became the phrase of the day.

It was just all too overwhelming. I thought I had an idea in my head of the things we needed or would like to upgrade on, but walking around that monster of a store made me dizzy. Whoever decided on the layout should be shot - there is stuff all OVER the place. For example, that hour we spent looking at china before giving up and continuing our route? Well when we went to return the SKU gun at the end, we stumbled upon MORE china we hadn’t seen before. So our hour was DOUBLY wasted (if that’s even possible).

After what felt like days wandering around glassy-eyed, we returned the stupid gun (for the second time… we had to exchange it 20 minutes into our adventure because the batteries died, AUGH!) and told them to erase everything (5 items) that we had entered.

And we high-tailed it outta there.

On the way home I tried to stay calm but it took a glass–make that two– of wine before I could put things into perspective. It’s ok, I said to myself. No worries. I’ll treat that as our pre-registry reconnaissance mission and go back on my own. Next time will be better.

Then, it occurred to me that I should probably try another store before going back to the dreaded Bay. So yesterday I went to Home Outfitters. I didn’t get a gun, just wandered around looking at stuff and taking pictures on my cameraphone to show the Fiance later. What a different story! Not only is the store less intimidating, size-wise, but the stuff is more reasonable. I mean, I saw the EXACT same sheets at both stores, and they were $20 less at Home Outfitters. How can this be? Both are owned by the same company, Hbc! That alone makes me not want to register at the Bay. What a bunch of criminals.

So I think I’ll go set up a registry at Home Outfitters later this week. First I’m going to geek out and create a spreadsheet for myself of things we actually need, to avoid getting sidetracked on my next trip.

Why in the world these stores don’t list all their products online is beyond me - wouldn’t it be great to just log on, browse and click instead of having to wander around these damn stores? But then, that would be too easy.