Manolo for the Brides

Here’s another one for the book of modern (and etiquette-unfriendly) wedding gift registries:

Realtors Bill Brandenburger and Mike Rizzo of Keller Williams Realty Sonoran Living decided it was time to develop an alternative to the traditional wedding gift registry (after nabbing the idea from Sarah Mara and Cindy Westlund, owners of Signature Title in Tempe, AZ, apparently). They recently launched a new program titled “Home Registry Solutions” specifically designed for couples getting married. The registry enables family and friends to contribute monetary gifts to the couples’ escrow account set up by both Brandenburger and Rizzo by way of Security Title. The money can then be used to pay for the couples’ first home together.

Ooookay. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m with Peggy Post, who suggests putting items like “basic appliances, cookware, formal and casual china, crystal, flatware, and bed and bath linens” on registries. When I see other items on a couple’s registry, I always get a little weirded out.

Asking for items for the home (rather than the home itself) is somewhat of a tradition and a sweet one, at that. But we’re all adults here. We don’t make birthday wishlists and hand them around or leave our Christmas lists somewhere others won’t miss it. Our guests, for the most part, are also adults and thus know what constitutes a good wedding gift. One can hope, anyhow. The very nature of mature gift giving suggests, IMO, that the recipient does not get to choose.

That said, I can certainly sympathize with brides and grooms who have already set up shop and don’t need a blender, a chef’s knife, or another set of sheets. If you simply must register for your home, honeymoon, or something of that nature, set up a token registry for those who prefer to give individual gifts rather than contribute to a communal gift. And please, please, please, stay away from those tacky cash registries that have sprung up all over the web. Those are just as bad as sending around a cheesy poem a la,

Now we are to be Mr. and Mrs.
We don’t need a wedding list of dishes
We have two kettles, two toasters, two microwaves
We require a house for which we have to save.
If you would like to give us a gift,
A checks or vouchers would give us a lift
We like to think of it as our ‘Wishing Well’
Which will be filled with your love, we can tell.

I’m not sure when “love” became a euphemism for “cash.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Gifts, Unusual Weddings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.