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Registry and Gift Forum
reppunzel
member
Belk or Bed Bath and Beyond
I'm interested in your thoughts on the relative merits of Belk vs. Bed Bath and Beyond for registering.
To be honest, FI and I both dislike shopping at BBB (he loathes it). The way the stores are set up is horrible -- the aisles are so narrow you can barely get a cart through and when we finally went there this week, I was almost afraid to turn around in the dish/glassware section for fear I'd knock something off the shelf. I've also not had good experiences shopping off of registries there: even the salespeople had a hard time finding the items listed, and in one case, they not only didn't have the item in store (although it should have been there according to their website), but they couldn't even show me a picture of what I was buying (a friend and I were going in together on it, so I couldn't just pick something else). A few months after the wedding, I was visiting the bride and said, "oh, those are neat placemats" ... she kinda grinned at me and said, "um, thanks: you gave them to us!" A.w.k.w.a.r.d!
BUT, other people seem to really be fans, and among the people I know it seems to be the preferred place to shop for weddings. And they do have some things that we like, in particular, a LOT in their Everyday White dishes/serving collection that we can mix-and-match with our dinnerware. Belk has our dinnerware, sheets and a few other things (haven't picked pots and pans yet).
We were initially planning to register at Belks and put the BBB items onto our Amazon registry. Now I'm beginning to wonder whether I should do it the other way around and register at BBB ... despite my dislike for their stores ... and put the Belk items on Amazon.
95+% of our guest list has easy access to either store.
Thoughts? Experiences? Input? All would be much appreciated!
To be honest, FI and I both dislike shopping at BBB (he loathes it). The way the stores are set up is horrible -- the aisles are so narrow you can barely get a cart through and when we finally went there this week, I was almost afraid to turn around in the dish/glassware section for fear I'd knock something off the shelf. I've also not had good experiences shopping off of registries there: even the salespeople had a hard time finding the items listed, and in one case, they not only didn't have the item in store (although it should have been there according to their website), but they couldn't even show me a picture of what I was buying (a friend and I were going in together on it, so I couldn't just pick something else). A few months after the wedding, I was visiting the bride and said, "oh, those are neat placemats" ... she kinda grinned at me and said, "um, thanks: you gave them to us!" A.w.k.w.a.r.d!
BUT, other people seem to really be fans, and among the people I know it seems to be the preferred place to shop for weddings. And they do have some things that we like, in particular, a LOT in their Everyday White dishes/serving collection that we can mix-and-match with our dinnerware. Belk has our dinnerware, sheets and a few other things (haven't picked pots and pans yet).
We were initially planning to register at Belks and put the BBB items onto our Amazon registry. Now I'm beginning to wonder whether I should do it the other way around and register at BBB ... despite my dislike for their stores ... and put the Belk items on Amazon.
95+% of our guest list has easy access to either store.
Thoughts? Experiences? Input? All would be much appreciated!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Belk or Bed Bath and Beyond
[QUOTE] ... I am from Washington state so I had never heard of Belk until my Fi took me to one, but if you just registered there, I would buy online. I think you're safe either way.. but it couldn't hurt to register at both. <strong>Why register on Amazon? Just do Belk and BBB... </strong>
Posted by firsttimersluck[/QUOTE]
Thank you for all the responses, and I would love to hear from anyone else!
We're doing Amazon as one of our registries for several reasons: 1.) there are some things on their own site that we would like, 2.) friends and family who use Amazon a <strong>lot</strong>, 3.) the free shipping over $25 (more important for some items -- like cast iron -- than others) and 4.) because we've both lived on our own for a while and are registering more to fill in gaps than to outfit an entire house, their universal registry option makes for a nice "catch all." We can add a few things from this or that store (even, Costco, for example, which we don't have here), and guests can either order online or visit the physical location if they want.
[QUOTE]... As for white dinnerware... FI and I (really I) spent ages looking at white dinnerware all over the place. I went to all the stores, looked at it in person, felt it, etc. My personal opinion is that BBB's everyday white brand is the poorest quality of those I felt. The glazing isn't very consistent, and the plates and bowls are often uneven in term of thickness, etc. It IS dirt cheap so in a pinch it works, but I would personally register for something else. Good brands: pottery barn, williams sonoma (both a bit spendy), crate & barrel (much less expensive), and virtually every department store sells their own in-house brand of white dinnerware. I can't speak to Belk's but I know Macy's sells charter club which is porcelain, and hotel collection which is bone china (and more modern). They also sell a pattern by Gorham called "Breckenridge" which is bone china and just standard plain white. Wedgwood also makes a couple plain white patterns with different shapes. Bone china is stronger than porcelain and will last you years without a chip or scratch.
Posted by hoffse[/QUOTE]
Thank you so much for your feedback, especially on the white dinnerware. This is kind of a weird question, but when you looked at the whites at different stores, did you find that they were pretty much all the same shade of white? If you were to mix and match pieces from different collections would they blend with each other? For example, we bought a small piece from BBB to take over to Belk to compare, and those two sets were the same white. I'm interested in looking at the ones you mentioned from Crate and Barrel, but we don't have a store here, so I'd have to look online.
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Belk or Bed Bath and Beyond : Thank you so much for your feedback, especially on the white dinnerware. This is kind of a weird question, but when you looked at the whites at different stores, did you find that they were pretty much all the same shade of white? If you were to mix and match pieces from different collections would they blend with each other? For example, we bought a small piece from BBB to take over to Belk to compare, and those two sets were the same white. I'm interested in looking at the ones you mentioned from Crate and Barrel, but we don't have a store here, so I'd have to look online.
Posted by reppunzel[/QUOTE]
<div>Generally (and I use this word loosely) porcelain is the same shade as other porcelain and bone china is the same shade as other bone china. But porcelain and bone china are not the same shade as each other. Porcelain is more of a stark, paper white and bone china is a milk white or what my mom calls "candlelight white."</div><div>
</div><div>All that said, it's never 100% certain until you put them against one another. You will have slightly better luck matching porcelains because it is naturally a white clay. I have seen bone china shades differ modestly when comparing, but it's still pretty consistent. The biggest difference I have seen was between the white bone china line through BBB ("Nevaeh" or something like that) compared to bone china lines from manufacturers like Wedgwood or Lenox. BBB's line is a different color, and I have no idea why. Wedgwood, Lenox, Waterford, etc. all match. You will have MUCH better luck matching either porcelain or bone china than you will matching stoneware. Stoneware is naturally brown and they glaze it white (or other colors). So to match that depends entirely on the shade of the glaze, not the shade of the clay. Glazes come in hundreds of colors.</div><div>
</div>
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Belk or Bed Bath and Beyond : The biggest difference I have seen was between the white bone china line through BBB ("Nevaeh" or something like that) compared to bone china lines from manufacturers like Wedgwood or Lenox. BBB's line is a different color, and I have no idea why. Wedgwood, Lenox, Waterford, etc. all match.
Posted by hoffse[/QUOTE]
<div>Our Lenox china pattern matches the Nevaeh china accent pieces we got to supplement our china. And when we were picking it out, the consultant mixed in the Neveah to show us that we could supplement with it, and it matched the other 3 patterns we had been looking at as well.</div><div>
</div><div>I had a wonderful experience registering at BBB, and am thankful for their return policy since I changed my mind on a few things after receiving them. I had such a terrible experience at Macy's that I deleted my registry. Just based on reading reviews on here, it really does seem to differ based on store location and the employees in that store.</div>
Planning Bio! Updated 05.02.12
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Belk or Bed Bath and Beyond : Our Lenox china pattern matches the Nevaeh china accent pieces we got to supplement our china. And when we were picking it out, the consultant mixed in the Neveah to show us that we could supplement with it, and it matched the other 3 patterns we had been looking at as well. I had a wonderful experience registering at BBB, and am thankful for their return policy since I changed my mind on a few things after receiving them. I had such a terrible experience at Macy's that I deleted my registry. Just based on reading reviews on here, it really does seem to differ based on store location and the employees in that store.
Posted by Cackle6[/QUOTE]
<div>In that case, OP should compare them in-person. The ones I compared were a different shade. Could be that they have changed things up, or could be that it's an inconsistent pattern.</div>
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Belk or Bed Bath and Beyond : Generally (and I use this word loosely) porcelain is the same shade as other porcelain and bone china is the same shade as other bone china. But porcelain and bone china are not the same shade as each other. Porcelain is more of a stark, paper white and bone china is a milk white or what my mom calls "candlelight white." All that said, it's never 100% certain until you put them against one another. You will have slightly better luck matching porcelains because it is naturally a white clay. I have seen bone china shades differ modestly when comparing, but it's still pretty consistent. The biggest difference I have seen was between the white bone china line through BBB ("Nevaeh" or something like that) compared to bone china lines from manufacturers like Wedgwood or Lenox. BBB's line is a different color, and I have no idea why. Wedgwood, Lenox, Waterford, etc. all match. You will have MUCH better luck matching either porcelain or bone china than you will matching stoneware. Stoneware is naturally brown and they glaze it white (or other colors). So to match that depends entirely on the shade of the glaze, not the shade of the clay. Glazes come in hundreds of colors.
Posted by hoffse[/QUOTE]
Thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed to know. I had hoped that keeping to the same material would help; we're currently leaning toward porcelain (that's what the Belk dishes are), but also looking at bone china.
Thank you <u>all</u> for your feedback. This is really, really helpful.
Decisions, decisions. Thanks for all the helpful comments!