A Practical Wedding, one of the blogs I read, had a post today about a Wall Street Journal article on wedding registries. Because wedding (and baby, or new home, etc) registries are something I have a serious love-hate relationship with, I read it, and found that I'm not really crazy in my views on the registry phenomenon:
I have bought from a number of registries, and am sometimes astonished by the items--are you REALLY going to use 5 different sizes of measuring cups? Napkin rings? oh come on...you eat take-out 6 days a week, and when you DO cook, your 'fine china' is the disposable plates that can be washed. But we are all adding them to our registries because we succumb to the Wedding Industrial Complex and see what the stores and WIC-supportive sites like The Knot TELL us we should be registering for (napkin rings, and 20-person place settings of the most expensive, ugly china known to man even though we have 6 people at most over at any given time, and 4 different types/sizes of wine glass, when really, the only size that matters is BIG) and can't help ourselves. Not to mention all our loved ones expecting certain things when one says s/he is getting married. But remember, every "tradition" was once new.
Target's most popular bath-towel color is "bison brown." Macy's top towel picks are vanilla, white, linen and chocolate. Couples move more often and "want something they can take with them to their next place and not be committed to a bold color statement," Ms. Bertelsen says.
Couples in most urban areas typically live in smaller homes compared with the past, and they lack space to store gadgets or items they will use only occasionally.Both of these quotes are something I've said, as is another point made within the article: couples are living together for one or more years before getting married--they already HAVE everything they need for the home. Gone are the day when a girl doesn't leave home until she returns from her honeymoon, thus requiring a shit-ton of home-starter items, or to make her life as "the proper little housewife and mother" easier. Sure, I want a set of flatware that is equal to the number of place settings we have that actually matches. We have an 8-person plate setting though--do we really need another one right away? I would love to do the same with glasses as well: we have a ton of glasses, but they are in sets of 6, 4 and random pint glasses.
I have bought from a number of registries, and am sometimes astonished by the items--are you REALLY going to use 5 different sizes of measuring cups? Napkin rings? oh come on...you eat take-out 6 days a week, and when you DO cook, your 'fine china' is the disposable plates that can be washed. But we are all adding them to our registries because we succumb to the Wedding Industrial Complex and see what the stores and WIC-supportive sites like The Knot TELL us we should be registering for (napkin rings, and 20-person place settings of the most expensive, ugly china known to man even though we have 6 people at most over at any given time, and 4 different types/sizes of wine glass, when really, the only size that matters is BIG) and can't help ourselves. Not to mention all our loved ones expecting certain things when one says s/he is getting married. But remember, every "tradition" was once new.
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