Wedding Registry Must Haves: What We Use, What We Love, and What We Don’t!

Creating your registry is one of the most fun parts of your engagement! Today I’m sharing the items you need on your wedding registry, and talking about what we use the most and what we could have gone with out!

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One of my favorite memories of the day after our wedding was sitting in camping chairs in our living room opening up wedding gifts.

We didn’t have any furniture yet.

It was our first day in the new apartment.

But we were married, and happy.

We received so many fun gifts off our registry, and some off registry, too. Some of my husband’s friends thought it would be funny to gift us a few baby toys! We got a good laugh out of it, and I’m secretly plotting to do the same when they get married.

We had wedding registries at Macy’s, Target and Pottery Barn. Macy’s and Target were the most popular among guests. Macy’s and Pottery Barn do discounts quite often, so signing up for emails to receive those coupons is helpful. You could share that on your wedding website for your guests if you wanted to.

If you’re building your registry, be sure to check out this post on 12 Must Have Kitchen Gadgets for Newlyweds!

Wedding Registry Items We Use The Most

Kitchen-Aid Mixer

If you love to bake, hands down add a KitchenAid Mixer to your registry. Yes, it’s expensive but it’s so handy and will last YEARS. You’d be surprised at the number of expensive gifts that will actually get bought off of your registry!

You can make 8 loaves of banana bread at once, and 5 pounds of mashed potatoes. If that doesn’t make you click “add to registry”, I don’t know what will. My mother-in-law got us the five quart mixer and I know it will be used for many birthdays, bake sales and holidays in the years to come.

While you’re at it, add some attachments to your registry like this spiralizer set and this pasta making set. Perfect for an at-home date night!

Cozy Blankets

In my opinion, you can never have enough blankets. They go on couches, on chairs, on the bed, and around you when you’re cold. My aunt and uncle got us this one and we really love it. It’s unique because it’s thinner than normal heavy blankets, which is so useful in the summer in Texas. Plus, it can be monogrammed!

Quality Knives

If you and your significant other love to cook together, good quality knives are essential. A good, sharp knife is actually safer than a dull knife! Growing up, my dad stressed the importance of good knives, and keeping those knives sharp. They’re a must for anyone who’s serious about cooking. We registered for this set and have loved them! It comes with some other tools like a bread knife, kitchen scissors, etc., and we honestly use everything!

Wedding Registry Items We Don’t Use As Much

Fine China

I went back and forth so many times about adding china to our registry. We love to host, and I hope to one day be the place where family comes for Thanksgiving or Christmas, so we decided to go for it. Though we don’t use it at all right now, I know one day I will be grateful we have it.

This is totally a personal call- don’t feel you have to register for china just because it’s “what people do”.

A side note- once we had all these boxes of china, I realized we had nowhere to store them safely. I ordered this storage set to keep them in and was really pleased. We actually store them under our bed because there’s not much room in our apartment! Also, I registered our china with Lenox, and it gives you a lifetime guarantee of 50% off any of your items that break. Pretty neat!

Margarita Set

Don’t get me wrong- Andrew and I love margaritas as much as the next Texan. However, I find we really don’t bring out the big pitcher and glasses very often. I think this is another one of those things where once we have friends (really) and start to have people over, we may use it more. For now, with our tiny apartment kitchen, it just takes up a lot of room.

Things I Wish We Would Have Added To Our Wedding Registry

Games

Like I said earlier, we love to host, but also, we love in-home date nights! We have the basics- monopoly (DISNEY MONOPOLY, thanks sister-in-law), jenga, apples to apples, etc., but I wish I had added some more to give us options. Especially two player games. A few weekends ago in at a friend’s house, we played Mad Gab, and we were all in tears laughing so hard. Some other favorites are Cards Against Humanity and Scrabble. Add games or movies if you’re into it!

The Little Things

I already had most of the basics as far as cooking goes, but we skipped out on things like an ice cream scoop, cookie scoop, and a mandoline slicer. If you’re not into cooking, then don’t add this kind of stuff, but think about the little specifics of things you love to do.

Love camping? Add camping chairs, marshmallow roasting sticks or lanterns.

Registries have evolved so much- you can make registries on Amazon, REI, and more!

My biggest piece of advice is to add things you’ll actually use, and go outside of the box. Think about what you and your significant other love to do together, and add those types of things in addition to your basic home necessities.

We added disc golf gear, an awesome picnic blanket, and gardening tools. One of our friends had an amazon registry with wines, movies, and an indoor garden system! And if all else fails, you can always get store credit for returning it! Haha.

Thanks for reading,

 All opinions are my own. 

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