How soon is too soon?

august802

So my FI and I just got engaged we are planning for a wedding in June 2014 we are also planning an engagement party for this July so I'm wondering if we should register for the engagement party and so if someone asks our family they can direct them to it and then just renew our registry as the wedding gets closer. Would love to hear what everyone suggests and if it is too soon to start a registry !

jessicabessica

The main drawback to registering really early is that things may get discontinued, and you may change your mind.  You also should check with the store you want to register at to see if they only keep registries live for a certain amount of time.  

You should not be planning and hosting your own engagement party, though.  Pre-wedding parties are gifts that are thrown by those that offer to host them.  

HobokensFury

Ditto Jessica. If you register for the E party most of your items will be discontinued by 2014.  Also I hope someone is throwing the party for you because it's rude and gift grabby to throw your own.

hoffse

Yeah you're way early.  I get being excited about it and all - maybe you feel like you can finally look at some of those nicer home items in dept stores and not have it be a pipe dream -  but it's probably going to mostly be discontinued by your wedding date.  I wouldn't do it more than 12 or 13 months out, tops.  The only (minor) exception to that I could see would be if you picked out a popular china or crystal pattern or something that you're fairly certain isn't going to be discontinued because it's been around for so many years already.

Plus if the first thing you do is go out and register for a wedding thats 2 1/2 years away, it sort of looks like your priorities aren't right, you know?

Most people probably won't bring a gift to the e-party.  Or if they do it will be a bottle of wine or something very small as a congratulations.

SCogs18

I registered at the one year mark.  I've had to reselect my cookware once and they just discontinued a couple other pieces.  I had a blast registering, but now I'm glad it's out of the way--it's a bit of a process!  It's not too hard to maintain your registry but you need to make sure that by the time people will look at it, it's updated and ready.  I really wouldn't suggest registering any farther out than 12 months, personally.

august802

Thank you hoffse and SCogs18 those were the type of nonjudgemental responses I was looking for, we know little about this whole process as all newly engages couples do and was just making sure i was not missing anything 

hoffse

NP.  I have to say this: not being able to really register yet doesn't mean you can't start looking.  I began to pay attention to the things we were going to need when it became clear that FI and I were going to get engaged.  We are still probably going to hold off registering for 3 or 4 more months, but I've got a good list of ideas.  Plus if you want your FI's opinion on things, that can be a slow process depending on how interested he is.  I'd also recommend spending some solid time looking at the stores' completion discounts - some are better than others.  I've found them ranging from 10-20% off whatever is left on your registry - and pottery barn, williams sonoma, and crate & barrel let you take 10% off virtually anything in the store for 6 months after your wedding date, not just your registry.  There are a lot of variations.  And also consider which stores are local to your guests.

People on these boards say no more than 3 places.  Personally I disagree with that if the three places you pick leave a large set of your guests without a local store.  I've seen as many as 6 registries (several times now), and it's never bothered me because I was only local to one or two of the stores, and I really like to pick things up, touch them, etc. before buying if possible.  That and I suspect that these wedding websites we all talk about (where you can list which stores you are registered at) don't actually attract that much guest traffic, so most people won't know your final store count.  FI and I are planning on having at least one registry that we just dont tell anybody about because they have the best completion discount we've found (Dillard's) but they don't have everything we want like Macy's does.  I figure people are a lot more likely to check Macy's than Dillard's anyway, and if somebody does check Dillard's then that means they're probably willing to shop there.  We might get a few duplicates that way, but honestly I think the odds are pretty low because Dillard's is not a store that a lot of people think of.

Anyway, have fun - it can be completely overwhelming picking stuff out but you've got plenty of time.

SirJuliusVonHaast

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_registering-gifts_soon-soon-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:34Discussion:f5f98e01-8629-4015-9d54-de338ae3c229Post:e33fb7a3-d3c1-45b5-8204-11a866befeda">Re: How soon is too soon?</a>:
[QUOTE]NP.  I have to say this: not being able to really register yet doesn't mean you can't start looking.  
Posted by hoffse[/QUOTE]

<div>I agree with this completely. I had fun reading reviews of appliances and browsing through a ton of different dishes, glassware, etc. way before we actually registered. </div><div>
</div><div>You can use the universal "wishlist" feature of amazon.com to save a list of the things from any store that you might want to register for later. It's like a registry but it doesn't come up in a public search, and if you check the option to keep it private, then it can only be viewed by you.</div>

midgemoto

No registering until after save the date cards are mailed...Certainly not 2 years before the wedding .

HobokensFury

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_registering-gifts_soon-soon-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:34Discussion:f5f98e01-8629-4015-9d54-de338ae3c229Post:4d620a05-d1fd-4971-88d2-c0dbc1eed796">Re: How soon is too soon?</a>:
[QUOTE]Thank you hoffse and SCogs18 those were the type of nonjudgemental responses I was looking for, we know little about this whole process as all newly engages couples do and was just making sure i was not missing anything 
Posted by august802[/QUOTE]

I wasn't being judgemental. I was trying to save you the embarrassment of committing a bad etiquette faux pas.