Make a registry they said. It'll be fun they said...

Have you tried Bed Bath and Beyond instead of Bay? I find they have WAY more stuff that I would actually use.

You could also skip having a registry - We're not doing one and just asking for contributions to our Honeyfund. My side of the family is Chinese where cash is the norm for weddings. We've lived together for years and don't really need anything, plus we're travelling for the wedding and don't want to deal with lugging all that stuff back.

Literally wanted to avoid this type of situation from day one.

We ended up going a site like honeyfund, we had everything we wanted so we decided to make things fun and have our guests give us experiences for our honeymoon!

Since we've been together for years we aren't doing a registry. I'm not having a shower so no one needs to buy a gift for that either. We did a registry for our baby shower (yep did things a little backwards lol) and the process was awful. It was a horrible experience because I truly HATE shopping. I hate on-line shopping I hate store shopping. If I want something I go get it and leave. I know our guests and I know our family. I would never go to a wedding without a monetary gift. I'd never look at their registry. I'm not putting myself through that for something that is pointless for us. If someone wishes to get us a gift or gift card that's fine we don't need anything though.

My FH and I aren’t doing one. We didn’t really like what then at offers: and if we need it, we usually get it our selves. A lot of our family asked what we would prefer in Lou of not using a registry and we say you can do a cash gift but nothing that is uncomfortable. And same with a gift. We always say towels or blankets.
I just hate to have some one think we are ungrateful or greedy.

We had a really experience with The Bay. The associate set up the account for us, gave me the a bag of perfume samples, a local wedding magazine, and their registry guide. She set me up with the scanner, and we had a good look around the store. We have manage the list online, as well as in store. On a second trip in, an associate showed me how we can use our smart phones as a scanner through the website, which ended up being a lot more efficient than the store scanner.

I hear what your saying and agree with everything your telling about salespeople pushing you to go higher or more for a registry.

I do work in retail and never push any customer to get what they have to get based on the need. I just know as a client, I would want to be respected by listening to there is no limit for putting whatever you want and at your price range.

Registry is done and out of the way so that's a good thing to add to the invites.

I wouldn’t listen to the sales associate you should only add items that you want or need.

Is Homeoutfitters and the Bay the same registry? So if it's out of stock at the bay they can get it at Homeoutfitters? We were thinking of either Homeoutfitters or Bed Bath and Beyond. Also IKEA now has a registry.
But then after following this feed, I looked at myregistry.com I seem to like it so far because you can add things from places like Walmart and Canadian Tire, it seems. They even have an app

We had a better experience at Bed Bath and Beyond, but the Bay has better after the wedding deals. We also got the “you don’t have enough” but that’s just them trying to make more sales. We just said most of our guests will be giving cash. Don’t feel like you need to add less expensive items. If someone doesn’t like what they see on your registry, they will most likely get you cash or a gift card.

View quoted message Our current house is quite small so we don't have lots of room to store things either!

And I totally relate to you on the shower thing, I don't give 2 ducks about having one but my mom is really keen on it and I don't think I can change her mind. She actually mentioned the idea of just getting people to give gift cards and usually she's one to be all up and up on etiquette. I'd also travel down to London for it (flying) so I wouldn't be able to bring back many gifts with me unless I explicitly plan for it. I'm trying to think of a way to make it more about games/socializing than gifts and maybe call it something else.

View quoted message Haha that is funny. We’re getting married just outside steinbach on his parents property. But honeymooning in Winnipeg.

AGREED - The Bay needs a MAJOR restock!! I did my registry there last week for my showers and I was super disappointed that a lot of the items were unavailable. I did mine online too and I was surprised at how much stuff was out of stock - the nice neutral colors or some of the really cute sale stuff.

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Same!! I mean with the process of buying a house. Lol - I was going over my registry (The Bay) with one of my girlfriends and she was like you need to add more, and I just don't know yet what I'll need. Gift cards of cash baby!

My fiance and I are making a public Amazon wishlist for our registry. No pressure from any store reps to add more items... which was a bullet I didn't know we were dodging until reading this thread, lol. Since we're not going the traditional store route I have no idea how it works and have some questions:

How do the stores/sites calculate you need more items?

Is it based on price (like the store assume each person will spend lets say $50) or quantity (like each person buys one thing)?

Do you have to tell them how many guests you have invited?

When you go in person do you ALWAYS have a rep with you? Sounds like being babysat.

Do the reps make a commission?

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Funny. We're from Winnipeg, and getting married in Steinbach

We did Bed Bath and Beyond and so far it's been amazing! We just did online too due to timing but so far we have been pretty good! The site says we need to add a lot more things but I agree with you... if we don't need it why put it?

We are also in the process of buying a house so we don't even really know what need for that yet so it makes it even harder... I'm hoping if guests did want to give a gift it would be cash but we obviously opened a registry for those who like the physical gifts.

We are doing it through the Bay but completely online, then you can just have everything shipped. Maybe try checking out the Bay's registry website? I found a lot more stuff on there than in store.

Fully agree!! We also did our registry at The Bay. We ended up taking the little catalog home and did the scanning from the comfort of our couch because it just wasn't working for us to walk around in circles. I found a lot of things on the website were out of stock, not so much in the store.

We have also lived together for almost 4 years and so our registry is more just upgrading what we have.

View quoted message Someone who relates! In our case, we won’t be moving into a house for about 2 years. We’re currently living in his parents house and saving for our own home. We don’t really want to register for items and then have to store it for so long. We’ve debated somehow saying if you’d really love to help us out please help us with our honeymoon with gift cards... to explain a little, we’re having a somewhat local honeymoon. We’re in steinbach and will honeymoon in Winnipeg (We’re not big travellers and so focused on saving for our future we didn’t want to spend the money on going away.) People could get gift cards/certificates for places to eat or things to do. Then I went and googled gift card shower and another forum came up and EVERYONE says how rude and not appropriate that is, that if you don’t want physical gifts you shouldn’t have a shower. (Which by the way I’d be perfectly ok with, my mom is really wanting to do one though.) That made me panic. I know it’s not the most ideal and we’d have to come up with something so people aren’t just watching me open gift cards but it’s what would truly help us the most. I don’t know...maybe we should just register and store it. It’s my biggest wedding anxiety right now.

We registered with Hudson’s bay and found the store disappointing as well. We ended up deleting most of the stuff we scanned and ended up managing it online- the online stock is much better and the website is finally half decent (before they revamped it last year it was awful). You’ll find more stuff online that you like. I ended up looking at random registries for people getting married the same day as us for ideas. Just search by date, or look up people that you know- it’s a big help!

With regards to the expensive stuff- we put a Dyson, a duvet and a really nice pot/pan set on ours with the intention of using the discount. They were the three things purchased first. When I was feeling uncomfortable about the gifts rolling in, one of my friends said “shut up and let us be happy for you- it’s your turn”. It’s weird, but if you’re appreciative (send cards. For the love of god, send cards)- people are usually happy to buy you a gift

Did you tell your guests in some way that you don't expect them to get you anything or that you want gift cards? Social conventions, such as buying gifts for a married couple, can be very important to some people and they might feel obligated to buy you something unless you're really clear about it (and sometimes even if you're really clear about it).

One major downside to not throwing something small on the registry is that you're going to end up with an unwanted gift anyway. They'll just go out and buy you something not on the registry. The Bay has some food/snack items you could choose if you want, then you don't have to worry about the clutter after.

I had the same experience with Hudsons Bay. The lady keeps emailing me saying we don't have enought stuff registered, but half the stuff on their website is out of stock!

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That's funny. My fiance is the one adding the crazy expensive Dyson lol.

Oddly, the only thing that my fiance and I have butt heads over has been the registry. It has been surprisingly daunting. He thinks everything I put on there that is over $50 is too expensive. There are plenty of less expensive items on the registry so I don;t see why he is complaining.

My brother and SiL had the same issue with Hudson's Bay as you did: nothing was ever stocked. They went back twice before cancelling their registry there and moving on to Crate and Barrel plus another store that I can't remember.

My spouse and I also have lived together for years (together 7 years, moved in reallly quickly) and we have pretty much everything we want as well. Even the Dyson vacuum- we decided to buy that as an anniversary gift back in November. There is very little that we need! Like, towels, I guess? We have lots but we could recycle new ones? And... a (new/better) knife set? Since we don't have steak knives? Honestly we have already a few too many things that I want to get rid of already (like this camping grill that we've never used because we always go with people who have their own) and I don't want to drown the house in things that we only put on the registry so that people would have things to buy, and not actually need. I wish cash registries were fine enough? Honestly, I don't even care if we don't get any gifts

I just did a registry at MyRegistry.com. Super easy and you can add stuff from any store you want. If you want to go to a few stores and shop for the best product you can do that without having to ask associates for help with the scanners and then you can go home and add it online. Super easy and you don't have to deal with the frustrating sales associates if you don't want to. It can be a bit overwhelming since there is a lot of stuff online, but it puts everything in the same place for guests. They also don't have to buy it from the same place if they find a good deal somewhere else they can mark off that they bought you a gift and change where they got it from. Worth checking out for those of you who are struggling with the in-store process!

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Luckily we were just given the scanner and could roam the store freely. One of my shopping pet peeves is when sales associates hover and follow. Part of the reason I bought my dress online lol.

I went home from the store and purged our registry online hahah. Its public so if people searched for it right now, they'd find it. Need to make sure only the items we want are on there.

We looked at getting a registry, but it didn't really make sense for us since like most of you, we've lived together for quite some time (2 years in April!). Plus if we need something, we've just gone out and bought it ourselves since we didn't want to wait until closer to the wedding to have something we needed.

We also live in Northern Ontario, so we don't have a Hudson's Bay or Bed, Bath and Beyond to register at, whereas these stores are all over the place in Southern Ontario. We decided to scrap a physical registry and write something on the wedding website about how monetary gifts will help us go on our dream honeymoon or save for "Our House" (we live together now but he bought a one bedroom after a bad breakup so we wasn't necessary thinking about family at that point).

Our registry experience was AWFUL. we went to Bed Bath and Beyond.. I thought they would give us the scanner and we could go around and pick what we wanted and whatever we thought was appropriate. We had the same problem except worse!! The guy who helped us was nice but he literally explained in serious detail every single product in the store... like i'm sorry but I don't care which plates are what type of material.. I just want the damn plates. ya know? it was quite frustrating. I even tried to speed it up and say no, we don't want to put any vacuums on the list or certain things we don't want for a wedding gift but he insisted that we add a $1,000 vacuum. the whole process took TWO different days, 3 hours each. 3 HOURS! why? hahah. when people ask if we are registered I just say not yet - I plan on editing the registry because we ended up putting a lot of stuff on there that we don't want or need or expect anyone to give us for a gift.

It would have been a lot more fun if we could have just gone around the store ourselves. and then in the end he said the same thing - we don't have enough things, and we don't have a big enough price range. - sooo annoying! hahah Now we just want to ask for cash or gift cards.. so we will see

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Seems to be a trend on this thread that the physical stores don't have the stock everybody is looking for.

I will say though....a year ago, their online print out version of their registry looked AWFUL, but they've completely revamped it, and it looks great now. Its been a far better experience adding items online than in store.

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We ended up doing most of the HBC registry online after. It was frustrating walking around the store and having nothing to scan. But things like towels you really need to see/feel in person right?

I completely get it!! Most couples nowadays have lived together for some time and don't need what most did back in the day when it was a wedding before moving in together!

I will have been with my FH for 2 years and 7 months when we tie the knot and I really don't think we need much and I also don't want much... we have a house - but it's small obviously because it's our first home.

With my family it's a bit different though - it's like an unwritten rule that you give presentation only at weddings so the registry would be purely for the wedding shower which is why we don't even know if we will have one! I mean I guess I can, it doesn't hurt? But what would I even put on the dang registry!?