What Sad Children?

Starting with the various bridal showers, through a few weeks after the wedding, boxes appeared on the front porch containing unknown gifts of wondrous magic and joy. There was always a bit of excitement, as we wondered what could possibly be in each box, because these brown boxes were somehow different from the ones that sadden children. We would bring them into the living room and have a great opening ceremony. However, if it was something we wanted, we already knew what it was. And if it was a surprise, it could be an unpleasant one, that is, something we didn’t want, as indicated by our registry.

The surprises came from those who believe they have superior taste, and those of superior taste believe only they know where it exists. Therefore they seek it, and purchase it, at places they don’t want you to find. Their competitive advantage, in the taste department, must be protected at all costs. These gifts don’t have gift receipts or distinguishing features, such as bar codes, just the piece itself, which is sold only by select retailers in remote places where tasteful people go on secret taste-enhancing vacations.

So, as we sat on the living room floor, one of the following reactions occurred when each box was opened:

“Hey, I remember registering for that.”

Or “Sweet Lord, where did that come from? Is that a monogrammed hand-glazed potato-peeling bowl?”

My advice is to register only for gift cards and cash. No boxes to deal with, no risk of sad children, no muted reaction to opening the gift you knew you were getting. Instead, you get to dream about everything you could get and not be stuck with last season’s furnishings. You can put your whole wedding’s haul right in your pocket and shop until it hurts. Unfortunately, this may encourage the volunteer taste police to take even greater pity on you, as you are apparently incapable of determining anything desirable on your own.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

The Season of Change

Keep in mind that the joys of registering, like so many other things, will continue to flare up and jump back onto your to-do list. As you register for things at your preferred retailers, you usually provide your e-mail address to receive updates regarding your registry—and all the other sale and promotion notices they can throw at you. In addition, as time passes these retailers inform you of the depletion of their seasonal merchandise. Our groundwork of registering in March for a September wedding slowly eroded, as numerous items slid down to the “no longer available” online section of the registry.

The stores are thrilled. They send you e-mails stating that only a limited amount of your chosen glassware pattern is available. Written clearly between the lines is the message: “We have even put this item on sale to make sure it is gone by the time anyone you’ve invited gets around to buying it for you.”

Our choices were to begin buying from our own registry or return and scan again. I am certain that bridal magazines are colluding, as they advertise all the fine registry options and tell you to start your registry six to nine months out, just enough time to ensure you experience at least one seasonal rotation of inventory.

Our favorite retailers always reminded us, “Be sure and check back often. We are always getting new inventory.” Your hipness is becoming a pain in my ass, Pottery Barn.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

Tales of the Gun

Registering has three steps: arrival, instruction, and deployment. First, go to the store. I say this because you could register online, but we know what that leads to: brown boxes and sad children at Christmas. You should refer to the store as the engagement zone because she might find it cute, and you are headed into combat. 

Second, find the ranking officer, who will type in your assumed identity and authorize the release of the Scan-o-matic 5000, along with brief operational instructions to scan the barcode and input the quantity. Bond had his Walter PPK. I had my Scan-o-matic 5000, weapon of the future man and wife. The Scan-o-matic had the heft of a power drill, the interface of a graphing calculator, and the aesthetic styling of a bottle of Liquid Plumr. From the moment the seven-pound plastic and rubber behemoth touched my flesh, I was alive. From the conspiring Polish stemware to the elusive Egyptian bath towels, every store was awash with villainous perpetrators. No agent of overpriced merchandise could escape the horizontal beam of mind-reading mayhem.

The officer will ask you if you are familiar with your surroundings, that is, their store. I would recommend answering with an emphatic yes. The sergeant-major of Macy’s gave us a tour of the nonclothing portion of the store lasting at least twenty minutes, about a minute per hundred square feet. What percentage of people can’t recognize a pot by sight?

At some point, I zoned out and began reconnaissance work on the Chinese deep-fryer who was causing an insurrection in the area between kitchen and electronics. According to our tour guide, “this is where you will find things that are used in the kitchen and are plugged in at the same time.” Roger that, sergeant-major.

Finally, in the deployment stage you are released with your intended into the field. There are three levels of comments that you should be aware of.

1. Do you like these?

This question is asking for an opinion; she is either truly on the fence or doesn’t like them enough to proceed without your approval. Give the honest answer. She does consider your taste, or what your new taste should be.

2. I like these.

This means she has made up her mind but wants a token approval. Say whatever your reactionary affirmative is and fire away. It is safest to scan and move on, trying to over-register (have way more gifts than guests, women probably don’t believe this is possible) and remove the objectionable item on a later revision. If it is truly awful and you’re savvy enough, try and blame the objection on the mood of a room or the clashing color of the duvet.

3. Ooh, I love these!

Reconfirm that excitement and scan away. Don’t ever object to these. You can try and make it seem like you are doing her a favor, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It is safest to see it as reacting to the statement, “Don’t you love my new shoes?” She does. Support the loving to get the loving. You can use this same reaction for something you must have, within reason. Pushing too hard for the kegerator will gradually erode any points you may have acquired earlier.

Eventually, she will want her turn to scan. For all secret agents, getting put on checklist duty is like getting demoted to a desk job. Here is how you get back on the gun. You can wait it out, since seven pounds does get heavy, and she will probably not want to be hindered while moving through the store. Or you can tell her that you scanned the wrong item earlier or that you need to make a change in quantity. In the same fashion that a universal remote can be frustrating to a beginner, the complexities of fixing a previous scan will result in the Scan-o-matic being returned to you. She does not have time for messing with the stupid thing. Yes, Bond is back in the field and ready for a showdown with the Indonesian napkin holders.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

REGISTERING - To Depot or Not to Depot

Registering is creating a list of items you would like to have to get started as a married couple.  You then share this list with your invited guests, who you hope will purchase the listed items. Don’t confuse this list with a Christmas list. A Christmas list is stuff you want. This is a list of what is going to replace all of the stuff that symbolizes your manly existence, like the fork and plate you eat with. Yes, intentionally singular. The assessment of my personal possessions began. I was prepared to take a couple of punches, because honesty is the foundation of a healthy relationship.

“I’ve always found your dinner plates mannish and not very attractive. We should get new ones,” Christa said.

Or sometimes the softer approach was applied. “Your towels are nice, but I don’t think they will fit the new color scheme.”

I did not remember the new color scheme ever being discussed, but my possessions and I were under new ownership. I was being rebranded as a part of a stylish and welcoming couple with appropriately colored guest towels.

Once I was released from the burden of anything I owned, that is, anything I had picked out for myself without her consultation, I was free to explore what suited me in the role of lesser half.

“Ooh, I like Pottery Barn,” she said. Which I admit was an excellent choice, but perhaps I should have made it seem like I was really sacrificing for her, since I was eventually going to try and get something I wanted.

We cranked out a list of possible retailers that could provide new guest towels and the like. And then I asked, “How about Home Depot?”

“No,” she bluntly replied.

“It would help with…”

“No.”

“We could use a…”

“No.”

“The house will need…”

“No.”

I went with logic, my first mistake. Our new home in Cincinnati wasn’t a fixer-upper, but it was an improver-needer. What better way to help us make a home together than the helpful folks and products at Home Depot, the “everything for your home improvement” store.

“No one wants to shop for wedding gifts at Home Depot. You might as well ask for an oil change as a gift,” she explained to me.

“If that would get you to take the car in, I would. You know it’s an essential service,” I responded.

You can see the wrong turn so clearly in retrospect. I was able to convince her to ask someone else, her sister, and surprise! It was still a bad idea.

I asked one of my friends who was getting married a month before us, and he said, “I wish. I could really use a Dremel.”

Man friends stand by you in the tough times. Why not clearly distinguish the man gifts, so each guest can show favoritism? Even men with callus-free hands, like me, enjoy the feel of a power tool, and my man friends would willingly shop for them. Hello ladies. Relieve yourselves of the gift-shopping burden by adding a man-friendly option. Do you really think we are ever going to distinguish and utilize glassware by beverage type? I knew this was not a victory to be won. So I relinquished my quest, but not before going to Home Depot’s website and noting that they did have registry services. So I’m not that crazy.

We eventually selected our retail options by determining, first, that we should register at no more than three stores. Then we identified which stores were locally available to our parents’ invitees, who might not be Internet shoppers, and finally we established which stores could collectively replace the greatest percentage of my mannish and unfriendly possessions.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival