Wedding registry TIPS on wedding registry
THIS IS A LOT OF GOOD INFO. On bridal registry
The truth is I never registered any where.T creative control weddings
Bridal registry tips, and how to avoid wedding registry scams
Wedding registry advice to save you time and effort. Warnings and scams that some wedding registries stores will try on you and your guests. Definitions and problems to be aware of, the truth about bridal registry "Sales", logistical issues, and money saving tips. All the caveats to avoid, questions to ask, and what you should have included in your contract. We'll also show you how you can setup your own custom honeymoon registry so your guests can chip in to pay for your airfare, hotels, and excursions. It's the hottest trend in honeymoon planning. Be sure to read our in depth article about online bridal registries:
One area of wedding planning that you the bride may can get taken for a ride is the bridal registry at some department stores. Even most of the better bridal bargain books, bridal magazines, or wedding web sites overlook advice on bridal registries. If they do give you any "advice", it's all fluffed up and completely useless to all but the dumbest of people. Why is this? So they don't alienate their advertisers. Department stores are difficult to deal with sometimes, with verbal "promises" made by store clerks at the wedding registry. That's why many brides have ditched department stores altogether, registering their gift list with online sites. The attraction of these online bridal registry sites is that everything is in writing online, so there are no weasel clauses for salespeople to pull on you, and online bridal registries have the same great products as department stores without the overhead of high mall rent. You can register in online gift registries for china, flatware, barbecue, electronics, DVD players, just like you are standing in a store, while sitting at your home computer. Your wedding guests can view your wedding gift registry online, buy and ship your gifts directly to you, avoiding hassles of visiting the bridal registry at the store, and fighting the crowds.
Bridal Registry Time Saving Tip!
Before you go running off to Macy's department store and use up your valuable time, it's much easier for you to start your wedding registry online at
macy's wedding registry,or Linens N'Things Gift Registry.
Choose your items for wedding gift registry online and build your gift list. Then if you decide to head to the store to see China patterns in person, at least your bridal registry will be created, and you won't have to hunt for wedding registry clerks and wait a half hour while they create your bridal registry and type in all your info that you could have done yourself online from home.
You might find one department store in a chain has a better bridal registry than others, better knowledge and skill of the employees in the wedding department. We've heard many brides complain of one store in a chain, while the other stores had great wedding gift registries. With our wedding planning advice, you can overcome difficulties, making your wedding registry experience enjoyable.
Some of the bridal registry scams pulled on us are much more than accidental. Our wedding guests relayed common concerns for guests shopping at a bridal registry. View our listing of common bridal registry complaints in our companion article All About Online Gift Registries And Using Them Effectively.
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Some department stores did not give us written documentation explaining policy on bridal registrations. Because of this, sales associates can (and did in our case) say whatever they want and claim later you misinterpreted them. I have a photographic memory, being en electrical engineer. Another problem you may find is sales associates in department store bridal registries for some reason have no grip on their pricing. There is no quick way for them to look up prices. That's pretty amazing since I could rattle off the top of my head the price of every bottle of wine and liquor in the wine shop I worked in during college. It often takes wedding registry salespeople forever to lookup a price which they should know anyway, they blame the computer, they can't find the wedding china pattern in the price book. Call me old fashioned, but if I was a wedding registry sales clerk selling the same 20 china patterns from the same display case day in and day out for months at a time, I'd have all the information ready just in case on the off chance a customer were to wonder what the price was on an item in their wedding registry. But that's just me.
Bridal Registry Place Setting Pricing Shell Games
To play the bridal registry place setting price game, you need to know the shifting definitions that some gift registry stores use. If you thought the car pricing game was a scam, wait until you see the suggested pricing games for China at wedding registries. Here is a description of different pricing terms, and how some wedding registry salespeople dance around the meanings:
Wedding Gift Registry Place Settings: How many pieces in the set?
There should be at least 5 pieces in a place setting. But verify that you and the salespeople at the wedding registry have the same definition for place setting to avoid ugly surprises after the wedding. Verify how many pieces are included in your place setting and for what price, and make sure it's in writing or they'll claim you misunderstood them. It's amazing how someone far less educated than you always assumes that you misread them. God forbid wedding gift registry associates admit they quoted the wrong price. Sometimes they show several pieces on display, but only half those pieces form the place setting, the other half is a-la-carte. Verify a written description of what is included in a place setting. When you register online at
macy's wedding registry,or Linens N'Things Gift Registry
this is not a problem, as everything is in black and white.
MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price)
This is just what it implies. It's a shame American businesses still insult shoppers with this terminology, it's a meaningless number. Typically, department stores advertise a price that is less than MSRP to make you think you are getting a good deal. We prefer "street price", or everyday price. BIG SCAM: When you see department stores advertising 50% off sales, your are typically not getting 50% off their normal price. In fact, most of the time you are getting no savings at all! You're getting 50% off the bogus MSRP price that most stores never charge. Online gift registries like the macys bridal registry of course have the price listed online.
Everyday "Low Price"
For lack of a better word. This is the price that department stores will have on the display shelves in their wedding registry and other departments. They may show the bogus MSRP price as a 'reference', and show their "everyday low price" to create the illusion that you are saving a lot of money. In reality, the price is not far from their competitor's price up the street, and usually more than a manufacturer's outlet store. Most department store bridal registries have similar "everyday low prices" on their china patterns.
They all tout that their price is the best, when in reality all the local wedding registries might all be the same price. Again, the price is shown online at macy's wedding registry,or Linens N'Things Gift Registry.
It's all part of the cleverly thought out "make the customer think they got a bargain" game. The bridal registry on the other side of the mall may have it even cheaper. "Everyday low price" should really be called "street price", or their normal selling price. Do not let your brain trick you with the word "low" in that phrase, it does not mean "lowest" price, it just means it's low compared to MSRP. The lowest price probably exists somewhere else, and unless you shop around, you'll never know. Still think we're wrong here? Read the Florida Attorney General's news release: DEPARTMENT STORES CHARGED WITH DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING . Of course I did not need our attorney general to tell me that, we saw it with our own eyes, and this is especially true of furniture stores and mattresses. They should just dispense with the price games.
The prices are discounted from MSRP, but don't be blindly swayed by the everyday low price, just because it is far less than MSRP. Especially in Florida, many department stores and furniture stores love to skirt the law by claiming doing this in their ads:
This Week Only! 50% OFF!*
Then when you hunt for the asterisk, the fine print says "Savings based on MSRP. We never sell at MSRP". If truthfully written, their ads would really tell you this:
You're getting 50% off*. *No you're not
How many people would buy then? It's misleading because if stores really don't ever sell at MSRP, then you're really not saving 50%. In fact we monitor many store "sales" inserts in the paper, and some prices never change, so it's really not a sale.
Sales Price:
This is where they get you brides if you are not paying attention. Browse the China at department store bridal registries and you'll see signs next to selected patterns that say "Sale 40% off". Well this "40% off" is really off the overly inflated MSRP. In many cases, this so called sale price is higher than the store's "everyday low price"! We see many examples of this so stay sharp! Watch the prices at all the stores for a month get familiar, watch for their pricing shell games, then go choose the wedding registry store you will sign with. As you browse at each of the china patterns to add to your wedding gift registry, ask the sales associate what price you are getting, and where it fits in the scheme of things. Is it everyday low price, sales price, or an MSRP? Will your guests be guaranteed a price? Will they put it in writing? Where is their written documentation that explains their bridal registry program? As an example, our china pattern is the Royal Doulton Biltmore. The MSRP was $185, which is ridiculous and of course nobody sells it for that, and the store's " everyday low price" was $119 per place setting.
The Major Brands
The well known brands of china that most people look for are Mikasa China, Lennox China, Noritake China, Waterford Crystal, and Wedgewood China. For cookware, the popular names are Cuisinart and Calphalon. For flatware, Oneida is one of the biggest names. Some people go for sterling silver flatware, some go for stainless steel flatware.
CONSUMER ALERT
Here are some scams pulled on us at a wedding registry, as the bride and groom and guests buying the gift all pay the price
They may tell you that your wedding guests can buy china for a low price, but they get charged MSRP
They pulled that on 2 of our guests and would not budge from the ridiculously overpriced $185 MSRP price even though they were reminded that we are registered there and were "promised" the $119 "everyday low price." A contract would have come in real handy here. Contracts are good at jogging people's memory. The guests ended up not buying the china, and angered, they left the wedding registry, went to a competing department store to buy us a different gift. Good for them. I would have done the same. This scam is very easy for wedding registries to pull on your guests, because you can't be there to police them. This is just one group of wedding businesses that like to scam brides, whose attention is focused on the whole ethereal aura of their wedding, instead of watching whose got their claws in your purse. There's no pricing games online at
macy's wedding registry,or Linens N'Things Gift Registry
This is a big problem for many brides as up to 70% of the gifts in some weddings are not from the bride's wedding registry gift list. This means the newlywed couple is stuck bringing back a ton of gifts that they did not want. Why does this happen? How could this happen?!! The clerks make it seem like everything will be automatic and peachy. So how could it happen? For the same reasons that it happened to us. Too many of our guests told us they were frustrated dealing with the store, the clerks were too busy, they could not find any of the gifts, items had no pricing, the bridal gift registry had inaccurate counts, when people bought wedding gifts they were not deducted from the gift registry. When your wedding guests buy through your online Macys bridal registry, the items are automatically deducted from the gift registry. The complaints go on and on. Usually the guest just leaves, goes to a competing store and buys a stupid glass candle holder. Then you end up with a dozen stupid glass candle holders you never wanted that aren't on your bridal registry. Even worse, guests try to get the "closest" pattern of towels or dish ware off your wedding registry, and it just ends in disaster.
In the week of the wedding, different guests paid different amounts china patterns in our bridal registry. I refuse to believe the price changed on a daily basis, something was just plain wrong. We did not want our wedding guests to remember our wedding from getting ripped off buying us a gift. We had NEVER seen the wedding registry at that store charge $185 for our pattern and we had been watching the price for several months. You can see why guests were insulted, others had just paid $119 for our settings only 2 days before. How do they get "every day low price" from the MSRP of $185? This is why we prefer the factory direct stores, they don't play shell games with the pricing, they just give you one honest to goodness low price. And they have plenty of sets in mint condition. Don't let department store wedding registry clerks dismiss the outlet stores as trash, and all defects, they are not. How could they say that when they probably never went into an outlet store