Ok, I just want to post this as a warning to girls who are going out soon to register. If you're wondering why I've registered so early, it's because my FI and i are in school and want to get things done earlier since we want to focus on the upcoming school year and not be burdened by planning deets. We've done a lot of things already that people consider "early", but we're just really trying to get a jump on it all.
So it was suggested I go in-store to register at BBB, because (at least in Canada, I don't know how it works in the states) if you pick everything online, you have a slim chance that everything you've picked will be found in stores in your city, or province. This means that people have to order them, and a surcharge is added for anything not being brought in from stores within the province. These surcharges can range in price, and I don't want to burden my guests with that if they are just as capable of going into their local BBB and finding a gift. So, I made an appointment, and my FI and I went into our local BBB to register. We were told to expect it to take 3 hours. Not so.
The registry advisor we had assigned to us was super enthusiastic, and we were cool with that, since at the start FI and I were both really excited. As expected, she tried to push more expensive gifts on us, such as 150 dollar place settings and 45 dollar wine glasses. I was not comfortable with this, especially since my FI and I are just going to be graduating from university, and aren't in a place where we need such things. I don't want to my guests to feel pressured into paying for high-end items, but in the end the advisor had us register for these items. This is where I want to warn everyone. If you go to a place where the advisor accompanies you throughout the store to explain items, especially in a big store like BBB, it will not take 3 hours. It took us 5 hours, and by the end we were saying yes to everything, just because were so exhausted.
I ended up deleting a lot of things when we left, just because in-store I didn't want to tell this girl that she was being pushy. She was super nice, and a great salesperson. I wouldn't really recommend having an advisor lead you through the entire store. Everyone I talked to said that when they registered, they were given a checklist as a guideline, and a scanner gun. I wish that was what we had, but they didn't really give us that option. I'm glad she was able to explain so many things to us, but it was clear she worked on commission. She kept complimenting our tastes, and telling us all the other couples weren't as "open" as we were, since we were giving her the benefit of the doubt with most things. She said that for our 150 estimated guest list, we needed to register for 300 items. Is that normal?! I have no idea.
Besides telling her to her face to back off, I don't know how i could have avoided this. I would just suggest to all brides to ask for their own scanner guns, and go around the store with their FI, only asking the advisors for clarification on things. 5 hours is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.