Jeremy and I have had several wedding-related items in the works, or in limbo – whichever way you want to look at it, over the past couple weeks. Mainly our wedding registry and the tuxes. With shower info coming together, requests for registry info has increased. So that meant that we needed to get our butts out there and actually register for things. We set aside Saturday (4/14) to be “super productive saturday” and to accomplish a ton of wedding-related stuff.
I was excited to register. I had downloaded the lists of recommended items to ask for. I had gone through online forums to get other recent brides feedback. Are the lists from the stores accurate? Anything else you’d ask for? Do I really need china and crystal? Lots of great info out there. Plus I asked facebook and had a post about it on this here blog. Again, great info. I felt prepared!
We went to the mall at about 1:30 pm. Perused through Macys and JCPenney to compare items. Made a pit stop at the jewelry stores to check out wedding bands. Pretty sure I found mine 🙂 All along we had been thinking we’d register at Macys. Jeremy said he didn’t want to register at Bed Bath & Beyond. Why? Because he didn’t want to register for the same salt shaker that we’d bought for all of our other friends’ weddings over the past 5-6 years. I agreed. BIG MISTAKE. Macys is the worst place in the world to start your registry. We started scanning at 3:00 pm. At about 5 pm I realized we’d scanned about 5 things over the past 2 hours. Can you say frustrating? My brain thought it was pretty frustrating too and decided that now would be a good time to revolt and develop a migraine.
Here are the problems we encountered at Macys… or at least the Portage Macy’s:
1) Things are organized by brand on little island displays. When there are eight different stations of stainless steel cookware – you have to walk all over the place and read boxes to figure why this set of 13 pots and pans is $499 versus the other one that is $399. This is especially problematic as Jeremy really likes to compare items – and this took FOREVER.
2) POTS AND PANS COST $499! WHAT?! WHY?
3) We have a perfectly nice new set of Paula Deen pots and pans that my Dad got me for my birthday or christmas. While the set is great, I wanted a few pots and pans that don’t have a teflon cook surface. (I like to mash potatoes in the pot I cook them in. You can’t do that in a teflon pot. The teflon scratches off and gets into your potatoes… ultimately giving you teflon cancer. Boooo to teflon cancer.) I do not want or need a full set of 13 stainless steel pots and pans but they only sell certain size pots and certain size pans individually. So if I want a 10″ stainless steel pan – it’s get the set or don’t get it. We did NOT get it.
4) Everything is sooooo expensive or so it seemed. I went home and price compared. Macy’s sale prices matched Bed Bath and Beyond’s normal prices. The problem is that their sale prices change weekly. So that $350 stand mixer I scanned? It is now $499. That $70 fancy pants toaster… is now $120. Who is the heck gets a $120 toaster? People are going to think we are CRAZY!
With a migraine and a serious case of the “I thought this was supposed to be fun but it’s totally not” blues, we turned in our scanner and took an ice cream break. (This was entirely Jeremy’s idea. He is a very smart man and knows that the way to instantaneously improve my mood is to give me ice cream.) God… Macys was just awful. Except for the lady that was our registry consultant. Nicest lady on the planet!
We took a break from registering and went to Libins. We’ve been on a tux hunt the past several weeks. Since it’s a beach wedding, we did not want black. Gray or tan/khaki were what we were looking for. Jeremy tends to favor earth tones, especially shades of brown so the decision was made. We were looking for a khaki or tan suit. We tried Men’s Wearhouse. According to what is advertised on the website – no khaki or tan suits. Same story at President Tuxedo.
Next we looked at the various bridal stores in town. All of them use the same supplier for tux rentals – Jim’s Formal Wear. As luck would have it, so does Jos A Bank and since my Aunt Renee works there she graciously offered to help us get a discount on tux rentals. They had one khaki tux that we liked.
The problem with this suit is that it doesn’t have a matching vest. Jeremy wants the jacket for the ceremony but then wants to ditch it for the reception. He didn’t like the idea of no vest because it makes too informal once you take the jacket off. We looked at the color vests – no go. We also didn’t like the shoes. Jeremy prefers square toe and they only had round. My issue with the shoes is that they only had a really dark brown. The suit is light and I thought it would look weird. We resolved to maybe just go out and buy all the guys brown leather sandals like in the picture. As far as fit goes, J wasn’t wild about the jacket either.
When we went through and priced it out – even after the discount (and not including new sandals) the total was going to be $175. Hmmm… a new suit costs $190. So, we started looking at suits. This is a dilemma. Spend $175 on a rental or buy a new suit for $190? Here’s the thing – how often are these guys going to wear a tan destination suit? Probably not very often.
Alright, one last place to try… Libins. I was pretty leery about this place. After all, “The Situation” was one of the rental tux models (BARF!). But once we got inside – Holy Crap this place is amazing! There are just walls upon walls of suit jackets, pants, ties, etc. They use a different tux supplier so we were able to find a few different options. Rental #1 = dud. It looked good in the catalog but the satin lapels just looked yucky in real life. Rental #2 = winner.
Clearly, J likes this option 🙂 Nerd.
I was really nervous about how purple dresses would look with khaki or brown tuxes. This makes me feel soooooo much better about it though. Once you have a pocket square (ushers) or boutonniere (groomsmen) to balance it out a little – I think they’ll look great! And the best part – this rental is a little cheaper ($150) and we like the shoes that come with it!
We left Libins at 6:30 pm and made our way to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for what I was sure was going to be another heaping dose of torture. After our limited success at Macy’s and finding that JC Penney is in the middle of “overhauling” their registry (re: you can’t register in store only online – even though the stores carry more products than online), we decided – what the heck. Let’s just register at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.
Pleasantly surprised. This was 10 billion times better. Things are far better organized and they have a wider range of prices for each item you are looking for… not to mention more options overall. We scanned until 9:30 pm and called it quits to go get dinner. That was more than enough for one day.
I spent the next couple days adjusting our registries. Deleting things off one, adding them on to the other (depending on who had the better price). We still have yet to find the perfect dish set. We really love the one set at JC Penney but, due to registry problems, it’s not going to work out. Half the set is available online, the other half (cereal bowls, small dishes, platters) is not – meaning we cannot add it to the registry. That and the other issue we’re running into is that they don’t have enough of the pieces in stock for the “in-store only” pieces. With no “find items at other stores option” we have no way of knowing if other JC Penneys even have them in stock. Oh well… guess we’ll just have to find something else.
See! Isn’t it cool? Bummer that it won’t work out.
We’re not entirely done registering but we’re pretty darn close. Still haven’t found that salt & pepper mill set yet. Or a new comforter. Amazon should be good for those things though.
And last, but certainly not least… we got our first wedding present from a registry in the mail yesterday! I got home and there were two boxes on the porch. I had just ordered new shoes (my wedding shoes – woo hoo!) and was expecting one box but not two. When I got to the boxes, I thought… hmm. What did I order from Amazon? Dang. This shopping online business has gotten out-of-control. I can’t even remember what I bought. I opened up the box and lo’ and behold – a FRED OCD CHEF CUTTING BOARD!
You have no idea how cool this thing is. It has a ruler on both sides, angle lines, shows you the size for “batonnet”, “allumette”, julienne”, “medium dice”, small dice”, “brunoise” etc. This is going to feed my OCD need and make chopping vegetables even more fun than it already is! Folks, you better believe… if you are a guest at one of my future parties – you will have the cube-y-ist shaped cheese cube EVER! 🙂
And all thanks to this guy…
Rob is a former employee and now good friend back from the K College days. Since graduating from K in 2012, Rob went on to work as a translator/interpreter in Japan. We don’t get to talk too much but hey – at least we keep in touch (mostly by sending each other stupid links or videos on Facebook or by playing the Draw Something app on our phones)! 🙂 Anyway…
Rob – that was super cool of you and a very sweet gesture. It was completely unexpected and totally made my day. Jeremy & I want to say thanks and are sending a virtual hug all the way to you in Japan. Miss you, buddy! We certainly hope to see you next time you’re in the States.
P.S. Jeremy laughed super loud and said “thats awesome” when he read the (by mennen) part of your note 😉
A Blue French Horn... 