Wedding Etiquette Forum

when do you register?

I am not getting married until August 2014.  I had thought we would register likely AFTER Christmas .. somewhere around Feb - March 2014 ... but people (believe it or not - I was shocked!) are ALREADY asking where we are registered / are going to be registering!  Is this normal?

My mom suggested we do it November ish (before Christmas) so people could look at the registry and possibly use it for Christmas presents I'm not sure if by "people" she means herself haha ... not sure how I feel about this either...

Re: when do you register?

  • We registered the week before FMIL sent her shower invitations out. I think this was the end of March for a shower at the end of April. We're getting married in July. If you are getting inquiries already, I'd just start a small registry. However, since your wedding isn't until August, you will have to keep monitoring it for things that go out of stock.
  • Not even THIS august though .. NEXT August!
  • auriannaaurianna member
    Ninth Anniversary 1000 Comments 500 Love Its 5 Answers
    edited June 2013
    Personally I think it's better to do it no more than 4 (definitely no more than 6) months before the wedding because a lot of things get discontinued / become "no longer available" in the time frame.

    You can probably tell people "Oh, we haven't registered yet but we'll probably register to XYZ closer to the wedding."
    If you do end up registering early, I'd only put singleton items on there / things you wouldn't have trouble picking a new type of it it's discontinued. I'd avoid sets of things until closer to the wedding.

    And for the record I think we registered at the end of October for a January wedding (showers were in November and December).
  • Just tell people you haven't registered. You'd have to register again because my then, most stock will change. Plus, I think it looks gift grabby to register more than 6-8 months out, personally. 
  • I don't think it is gift grabby if you don't announce it. You could just tell people who specifically asked.
  • I registered right before i sent the save the dates
  • I don't remember when we registered, honestly, but it was before Christmas for a July wedding b/c I got several registry gifts for Christmas.  If your mom wants Christmas ideas it wouldn't hurt to take a look and pick some things. 

    We did have a few things go out of stock, but one was our luggage which was still in stock at the wedding, but was discontinued by the time we got our act together to buying the rest of it several months later.  The other was our sheets which we'd originally bought several years prior and we were registering for additional - so there's really no guarantee that things won't be discontinued regardless of when you do it.

  • Ok thanks ladies I think I'll try and register by November for Christmas but I won't "advertise" it to anyone.  I will tell people where we decide on IF they ask specifically and put it up on the wedding website so people can look there. 
  • We registered 8 months in advance. We were really excited, and it was nice to get that out of the way. We have had several of our items discontinued, however - the sooner you register, the higher a chance you have of re-registering when things are out of stock, especially after a busy season like Christmas. I'd recommend you register no sooner than February.
  • edited June 2013
    Honestly, I am not getting married until next June but we already started doing ours. This is because we are both finishing school this year and I know we will have no time during our final two semesters. I know I will have to replace a few things but it is much better than trying to do it all while dealing with finishing my masters. You don't have to make it public where you registered until later. Actually, because my FMIL threw us a surprise engagement party, we got jokingly told we were difficult for not having done it right away so I think it is more of a personal choice. As long as you aren't telling everyone where you are registered right away or without them asking, I don't think it is gift grabby but that is just me.
  • We registered 9 months before the wedding date. Worked for us.
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  • i started a "fake registry" through registry.com once i got engaged (so like 1.5 years out).  its password protected and no one can search for it but me.  anytime i think of something we need i use the 'add to my registry' button.  i'm sure a ton of stuff will be discontinued by the time we actually go to register but it gave me a general idea of what we needed and what i should add more of (price range wise).  i also found it helpful when places like macys have crazy sales to see how much the price of certain things drop.  
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  • When I threw an engagement party people kept asking me where the couple was registered or what they wanted. It was too soon to register, but she just made a small list online with a few items (like a nice picture frame). If people are asking already you could do something like that and wait until closer to your wedding date to do the full registry.

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