Thank you for thinking of us, but we’re not supposed to talk about gifts we want for getting married, it’s rude. Shame on you!
You may wonder what’s so bad about us posting a registry on our wedding site. Historically this stems from the fact that back when weddings weren’t as overblown as they are today, sending out gift requests with an invitation implied that guests were required to bring gifts if they chose to attend. In common practice pretty much everyone provided a gift for a couple if they attended the wedding and everyone knew it was expected. Making this a requirement through invitation was considered wholly inappropriate because it implied the recipient of the invitation were ignorant of the standards and therefore the invitation was likely to offend potential guests.
In 1924, Marshall Field’s introduced the first bridal registry service in the United States. The purpose of the registry was to allow a bride to pick out a china or crystal pattern and allow their guests to purchase them expensive dishes piece-by-piece. Not only did this help to ensure the bride of the possibility of a matching set, it also allowed guests the opportunity to purchase specific pieces within their price range instead of guessing what others had bought or being forced to buy outside of the comfort of their price range (on a side note, Marshall Fields employees also got to spend a lot less time trying to deal with returned china from various wedding faux pas, but this benefit is overlooked by most registry historians).
Registries grew quickly from Marshall Field’s’ successful model to other department stores and chains across the US. Registries were also gradually expanded to include other store items. Despite their increasing popularity, though, it was still considered impolite to make direct overtures to guests to inform them where you were registered. Instead, a relative (usually the mother of the bride) would have information about registries for those who politely inquired where they might find a good gift for the happy couple. These clandestine operations theoretically occured without the couple or the gift-giver ever having to make eye contact, let alone verbal, and thereby allowed both parties to bypass the unbelievably awkward conversation that began with “So what would you like for a wedding gift?”
Internet-based registry as we know it today didn’t really occur until 1993, when Target made a brilliant breakthrough: letting couples run through their store shooting tags indescriminately with a scan gun generally led to longer lists and higher profits! To take full advantage, the company created a national registry system for brides and grooms to be. An added benefit was that any couple’s list could be viewed and purchased from at any Target across the nation, allowing out-of town well-wishers to purchase gift without the fear of duplication.
Some people might think that in today’s world of hyper-expensive weddings ($28,000 is the US average, but don’t worry, we’re both much cheaper than that!) and relaxed social norms that it would be perfectly polite to include registry information with invitations or leave this information in a readily accesible location like a website. In fact, many couples do this online today. But Amy and I are staunch traditionalists about registries. Why would we ever want to come out and tell you that we wanted a gift? You would think us untoward or perhaps oafish for even suggesting such a thing. Further, you might be so off-put by a casual announcement that you’d think we were unworthy of your presence at our wedding, and we don’t want anyone to feel excluded by our greed.
So despite the convience that it would be to have a page on our website with that information, we’re staying in the lines that Ms. Manners drew for us and not putting that information out for everyone to see. We wouldn’t dream of breaking those rules. We certainly wouldn’t tell you that we’ve got a registry at Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond. We especially certainly wouldn’t tell you that we’re also hoping to get some gift cards to Furniture Row and The Home Depot to use toward rennovating and furnishing our new house because gift cards are akin to asking for cash, which would effectively turn our whole wedding into one big usury scheme.
We have a whole lot more class than that, so we hope you’ll understand when we tell you that to find out where to buy a gift for us, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way by whispering questions to our relatives or close friends. Hopefully they’ve got a secret list somewhere and they’re meeting once a week to cross items off. Otherwise it’s gonna be a five-toaster wedding (Bright side: Amy and Metz could totally put on a killer production of True West if that happens).
Here’s To Tradition!
