he
wedding is just a few days away. Wow!!! Many people are asking about
registries ...If you cannot think about what to get us, consider making a
contribution to the canoe!!
- From Tina Deck and Jason Yarrington's online wedding registry.
Before Jason Yarrington and Tina Deck got married last August, they
signed up at a couple of bridal registries.
They requested wine glasses, knives, and a coffee maker at Crate &
Barrel. They registered for sheets, pillows, and a vacuum at Bed, Bath
& Beyond.
Then they really got into it. They posted a wish list on felicite.com, an online gift
registry service, for a 16-foot canoe and tickets for Red Sox and Celtics
games. (They didn't luck out on the tickets, but friends did chip in on
the $959 canoe. ''They were really psyched about it,'' says Yarrington,
32, a Salem computer systems administrator.)
Not so long ago, aunts and grandmas would have gasped at such audacity.
Couples who registered for wedding gifts got the word out discretely,
discreetly, via mothers or maids of honor. Besides, wedding registries
were not for luxuries like canoes, but important things like monogrammed
silverware or cut crystal goblets or banded Lenox china dinnerware
household necessities meant to set a proper style and tone for married
life.
''Even the most casual way of living ... follows certain accepted codes
and conventions in carrying out the amenities of hospitality,'' Marjorie
Binford Woods and Justine Feely wrote in their 1955 guide for ''young
marrieds,'' called ''Off to the Right Start in Choosing Your Household
Treasures.'' These conventions probably wouldn't have included a two-week,
$5,000 honeymoon in Sicily, which happens to be the gift preference of
Noah Shaw and Karen Barone of Cambridge, who are getting married in
September. They signed up with an online honeymoon registry service,
HoneyLuna. com.
They wouldn't have included an ''acupuncture start-up fund'' ($1,000)
for the groom, a budding Boston-area acupuncturist engaged to an artist;
she picked out $240 worth of stretcher bars for making canvases. They also
registered on felicite.com
for a $1,400 bicycle fund, noting on the website that his got stolen and
hers ''needs some serious work.''
Choices, choices. There's the Boston couple who used felicite.com to request
$100,000 toward a house; and the policeman in Arizona who asked for a
Glock 33 pistol ($499) and a $25 under-armor shirt. (''It's supposed to
make it much more comfortable to wear,'' he explained in the
''description'' box.) There is the couple from Brookline who registered
for two $3,000 college funds, plus some books and a subscription to
Foreign Affairs magazine.
If you haven't gotten married or been to a wedding lately, you might be
startled to encounter the new wave of bridal registries. Yes, brides still
meet with consultants at Tiffany & Co. or Bloomingdale's to ascertain
their lifelong bone china needs, but more likely they - and their fiances
- are running around stores like Crate & Barrel or Linens `n Things
using scanning guns to zap the bar codes on the gifts they've picked out,
creating a computerized gift list their guests can buy from without
setting foot in the store.
They're setting up registries at multiple retail stores - REI, Pottery
Barn, Home Depot - where couples have been known to request faucets,
knobs, drawer pulls, brass locks, mops, even a jacuzzi tub, according to
Mike Lively, store manager of the West Roxbury Home Depot.
They're registering for honeymoons at Garber Travel; video cameras and
television sets at Target; bottles of wine at a wine wedding registry in
Monterey (terranovafinewines.com); even, in the case of one couple, a
$6,000 hydroelectric generator, said Hans Xu, vice president of marketing
for felicite.com
headquartered in Greenwich, Conn. That website, a personal shopping
service, also lets couples register for unique gifts such as pottery by
local artisans, donations to charities, and ecologically correct products
such as recycled glassware and organic linens.
They're creating customized websites on TheThingsIWant.com or
FindGift.com; or cutting
right to the chase at Greenwish.com, where they can register for cash and
stocks. ''Whether you have already picked the house of your dreams or want
to grow your financial portfolio, you can register in just a few minutes
and receive cash gifts in your bank, brokerage, or credit card account,''
the Greenwish website states on its wedding page.
They're registering for commitment ceremonies if they're gay, at stores
as steeped in tradition as Bloomingdale's and Tiffany & Co., one of
the few high-end gift shops in the area that has resisted scanning-gun
technology. Indeed, gay and lesbian couples are considered ''extremely
high-end'' customers at The Registry at Bloomingdale's, said Christopher
Willis, bridal manager of the Chestnut Hill store. ''We are very proud to
have a registry for them.''
Diane Forden, editor-in-chief of Bridal Guide magazine, said the
face of bridal registries started changing about five years ago. ''The
purpose has changed,'' she said. ''Years ago, there were registries, but I
don't think that many brides did register. And if they did, they went with
their moms to one store and registered for traditional gifts - china,
silver, and crystal.''
Now, said Forden, surveys show that 99 percent of brides are
registering for bridal gifts, at an average of three separate places.
''They are outfitting every room in the house,'' she said. ''They're
increasingly registering for electronic goods. Registering for a home
mortgage is a definite possibility for couples today. And over 88 percent
say they are going to register with their fiance. When you're both going
together, he is definitely having some input. I think guys like the idea
that they can register for stereo equipment, TVs, and digital
cameras.''
''To be able to manage your purchases online is a must these days,''
said Kristin Savilia, director of gift registry services for Linens
`n Things. ''Customers love the scanning guns. They love the websites.
Everything is about convenience.''
They also, apparently, love the options.
''We've been living together for five years now. It's not like we are
forming a whole household infrastructure,'' said Noah Shaw, 26, a recent
law school graduate who registered for the Sicily honeymoon with his
wife-to-be. ''If it weren't for (HoneyLuna.com), we probably wouldn't be going on a
honeymoon. We don't have money to do something like that. We'd rather have
two weeks in Sicily than have a set of flatware.''
Sherianne Shuler, a communications professor at the University of
Alabama who teaches a course on the history and culture of weddings, has a
more cynical view of the registry phenomenon. ''What started out as an
opportunity for a community to come together and help a young couple get
their start in life has turned into a greedy free-for-all,'' she said.
''It's a chance for a bride and groom to imagine everything they might
possibly want and put it out as their wish list. It's all part of the
consumerist frenzy we are into right now as a society.''
There may be no turning back. Even third-generation etiquette expert
Peggy Post, author of the fourth edition of ''Emily Post's Wedding
Etiquette,'' has come around to thinking that registries for honeymoons or
mortgages are acceptable ''as long as you meet the principles of being
considerate. It's very important to remember that it is a guest's choice
whether or not to use it. It is an option.''
Still, the new way of registering remains perplexing to people like
Alicia Haley of Holliston, who, on a recent Saturday, was accompanying her
future daughter-in-law, Melissa Halasz, 27, of Boston, as she zapped her
way around the Crate & Barrel store in the Natick Mall with a scanning
gun.
Haley, who has been married for 33 years, still has fond memories of
the one-of-a-kind, unsolicited gifts she received, like the his-and-hers
champagne glasses she and her husband used at the wedding ''and have used
every year since on our anniversary. And to this day, every time I take
out a silver dish or crystal bowl, I think of the person who gave it to
me.''
She considers today's style of registering ''gauche'' and ''very
impersonal.'' Nevertheless, she has been encouraging Melissa to register
to make it easier for guests to find a gift.
''They're so accustomed to the Internet,'' she said. ''I've succumbed
to the pressure of the time.''
For more on bridal registries, tune in to NECN today at 12:40 p.m.,
when Globe writer Linda Matchan is scheduled to interview Christopher
Willis, bridal manager of Bloomingdale's in Chestnut
Hill.
