So, if you choose to, please answer the following:

1) In hindsight, was the best/most used thing you registered for?
2) What was the coolest thing you received/registered for?
3) What was the most useless/never left the box thing you got?


Appreciate your feedback on this matter.


-Rick

best/most used: dishes and flatware
coolest: waffle iron
most useless: some tchotskies, or whatever.

I'm gonna bypass your questions and just give general advice/comments based on my experience.

Register for a really nice knife set.
Also a large slow cooker if you don't have one.

We made the mistake of not registering for much really nice stuff. You need to register some cheaper/smaller stuff for the cheapskates and not-so-close friends, but mostly think about nice stuff that will last. Like dish sets where pieces can be bought separately are always a good thing to register for. Also towel sets and nice sheets.

Like the nicest thing we probably registered for was a mixer, and while it hardly gets used, it's good to have, and we wouldn't have spent that much on it ourselves.

My memory sucks too bad to answer your questions even though I've only been married 4.5 years. (I forget which gifts were from showers and which were from the wedding in addition to just generally forgetting what we got.) Although my personal favorite gift out of everything we got was an obscure board game that we didn't register for and that I'd never heard of.

Oh yeah, Wustof knife set was pretty awesome, too.
Good call, Drinky.

Big Stuff: Parents and Grandparents and their friends will buy. You need enough of this stuff that you can get what you want
Little Stuff/Most Used Stuff: Shit you would bring to a wedding where it's a not so close friend of your date - turns out there's a lot of this, like cheap ass wine glasses from Crate and Barrel that you don't give a fuck about breaking unlike say, Riedel glasses or what have you.
Random Stuff: The two most memorable presents we got were not on our registry. Y'all got us a boss decanter that's in my office right now (thanks, yo!) and one of FEMGAR's mom's friends got us this awesome silver ice bucket with antler handles from Nieman's. (She's from Dallas, it was a moral imperative that we register there even though nothing is affordable).

I will say that a matching set of nice dishes (but not the china) was something I would never have realized I wanted or needed yet has improved my quality of life.

Most useful: Kitchen knives, tools, linens.

Most useless: crystal, china, or anything decorative (I know by their very nature they are useless, but this stuff is worthless and you should get something you can and will use).

I think we're all burying the lede here...DERRIS IS GETTING MARRIED?!?

This is the one time in your life were people will buy you nice-ass shit because they are supposed to. Don't be afraid to register for a ton of stuff. I was always asking femdisco "we don't need this" and she would reply with "if we return it from the registry we get 20% off the item we end up with." - that was for Bed Bath & Beyond.

The general rule of thumb is give a range of gifts prices: I think we went all the way from $20 all the way up to $800 (most of the stuff we got was in the $50 - $200 range). The more expensive stuff was just there to give people an idea of our taste, so we wouldn't end up with stuff we definitely didn't like and would have to return.

I think the most useful/coolest gifts we got were a Weber Grill, iPod, Blu-Ray player, knife set and full Black & Decker tool set. Oh, and the best gift was a bench that a bridesmaid's husband made for us; he even upholstered the seat pad.

I'm with Drinky - ask for a really nice knife set. It'll last you forever. We got J.H. Henckels block and set. I could give a shit about dinnerware, but like GAR said, having nice stuff ain't all that bad. I still use my cheap-ass IKEA bowls even though we have a set of bowls in the nice stuff. Nice cookware and glassware is a must too. It'll last you forever.

Best:
Pots and Pan set
Silverware
(Knives is a great idea too)

Coolest:
Someone hand stitched a copy of our wedding invitation and had it framed. (We had my wife's little cousins each draw us a picture, 1 went on the program, 1 was the name cards, and the third was on the invitation.)

Worst is a tie between:
Fine China and a regifted Ice Cream Maker that was more expensive than buying gourmet ice cream and only produced some nasty ice cream soup.

Best: Waffle Iron
Coolest: My Sister paid for our photographer
Worst: A fucking lemonade pitcher with "fancy" lemonade flavors. (thanks for not even pretending to review our registry, asswipe).

We didn't really register for much though. We asked for people to donate to charities of their choice if they felt compelled to purchase us something. Got a lot of cash. Something like 10k. Welcome to our student loan debt payoff!

1) In hindsight, was the best/most used thing you registered for?

We got a ton of use out of our casual wear dishes. My wife probably got most excited about all the china pieces she got, though. I dont remember getting anything I liked all that much except maybe a nice coffee bean grinder.

2) What was the coolest thing you received/registered for?

cash with which i used to buy a lot of booze on my honeymoon

3) What was the most useless/never left the box thing you got?

the funniest thing was that someone was so cheap they bought us ONE FORK from our silverware settings

1. Shun knives, cast iron dutch oven, plates

2. Emile Henry clay pot. Everything i made it in it tasted like magic. I bet she doesn't even use it anymore, and i've never seen another like it at Williams-Sonoma, the other cool thing was a cookbook friends compiled of dishes we actually enjoyed at their homes.

3. we used pretty much everything we got, but we registered at crate and barrel, williams-sonoma, and home depot.

Yup, good knives and other good kitchen stuff is most important, stuff you will use for years and years to come. For me dishes are more disposable since they chip and all and you end up replacing them and you can get something decent for dishes for not too much so I wouldn't care about them as much as cookware.

I would also suggest, depending on your friends, registering for things in small pieces so people can afford something. I mean, maybe a few friends will individually be fine with buying you a $40 pot or pan adding up to what you need, but if you register for the $500 pots and pans collection people may come up short. Ten friends each buying you an individual pot or pan can make for a super nice set and you can register for good ones. But, if you're counting for one friend to drop down a stack of bills on the whole deal, maybe that's a bit much to ask.

Yeah, register for quality products that will last and won't look dated.

Items from Target will be in the garbage in 1-5 years.

We had a presentation wedding, so it was all good, nothing useless.

We got the gravy boat stand from our china pattern, but not the gravy boat: Thanks for nothing.

Agree with most everything said. Personally, I wouldn't register at Crate & Barrell unless there's some housewares there that you like--as LooGAR mentioned, their dishes and glasses stink and all of the kitchen gadgets they sell can be registered for at other places; Also remember to register for some shit at either Target or Macy's cause "Mama's Aunt Sister" might not have a Williams Sonoma in Pigs Holler and well, the internet is just confusin'.

My favorite gifts we got: Knives, Deep fryer, Stand mixer (my wife uses it all the time).

Addendum: I would register for real fucking silver silverware over china and crystal, but that's me; we eat on vintage china plates that belonged to my grand mother while our measly few pieces of wedding china, while really fucking cool, will end up on ebay. Soon.

12 years later my wife is still bitchin' that she doesn't have a stand mixer.

I on the other hand wish we had a deep fryer.

Edit: 5 years in, we returned all the China we got to Macy's and got a $400 gift card that we used on a spending spree to buy the kids some clothes.

sex toys and booze...yr gonna hire me right?

I was advocating for crate and barrel. We got our regular dishes from there and not one has broken, etc. and I like the shitty/thin wine and martini glasses because you can buy someone's full set of 12 like a boss for ~$50.

I hate that fucking stand mixer so much it's unbelievable. She's used it 20xmax in 5 years and it's HUMONGOUS. But the worst gift we got was at our shower at TTB's -- ice cream maker that we never opened and finally gave away this year.

I didn't know that china was still a thing. we certainly didn't register for it. but we did register at Tiffany's for the silver pattern, 1% as hell. Only god can judge me.

i dont want to hijack this thread, i'm not even engaged yet but my gf and i have talked about getting married for years and have been living together for about 3. we basically have evertyhing and we have thought hypothetically that we wouldn't want to do a gift registry but if people are intent on giving us things, we would love gift certificates for good restaurants n shit like that. is that tacky/bad form?

no, but if they still get you crap from macys or target or whatever just return it all for credit, either blow it on a TV for your bathroom or your cleaning supplies for the next 5 years.

Post/av