The wedding gift that changed our life

We've been married for almost a year and a half. In that time, we've found a lot of uses for some of the items for which we registered. The plates, glasses, cups, flatware- use them every day. The pots and pans, most days in a week. The mixer, about once a week.

But none of those things really changed our life. We did just fine without them- our life isn't any different because we got them; prettier, perhaps, since everything matches, but it didn't change things.

There is one gift that we got, however, that has really changed the way we do things around our house. It wasn't on our registry, and was actually a shower gift.

How to Cook Everything

This is our go to cookbook, for just about everything. My mom's go to cookbook was McCall's, and we have a Joy of Cooking, but this is really the one that teaches you how to cook, in plain english, with items you already have in the cupboard.

Favorite recipes include ice cream (best Christmas present last year was the Kitchenaid mixer attachment), pizza dough (a doubled recipe makes enough for 3 pizza stone sized pizzas, and keeps in the freezer), and crackers. Yes, crackers. For really cheap (like, 20 cents cheap) and 15 minutes time, you can have amazing homemade crackers. They are Calvin's specialty, and he makes them all the time.

We've given the cookbook to every member of our families, and talk about it whenever cooking comes up. It is that fantastic. And who knew that a cookbook could change your life?

What was your most useful wedding gift? And what is your favorite cookbook?

Popularity contest

There's a bit of a popularity contest running right now between the registries. (And no, I haven't peaked.) Dillard's is single handedly destroying the competition, as it seems that most people thus far greatly prefer shopping at Dillard's over Williams-Sonoma or Crate and Barrel.

My explanation for that? It's a generational thing. People in my parent's generation much prefer to shop at traditional department stores, whereas our friends would be much more likely to go to Crate and Barrel.

And popularity items? China wins, hands down. Confirming the observation by Calvin's mom and her dear friend, people just love giving a 5 piece place setting. (Maybe it helps that our china pattern is priced at the totally-reasonable-for-china price at $70/place setting. But it's so pretty)
Gratuitous china picture from here.

What registry have you found to be the most popular?

To peek or not to peek?

I think in preparation for the shower, Calvin's mom happened to point out that there were some unintentional repeats on a couple of our registries. (No, we did not intend to register for two hand mixers.)

So in the process of editing the registries, I happened to notice the gift tracker feature that both Dillard's and Williams-Sonoma have. Basically, it tells you who purchased what gift. Checking just to see how it worked (and figuring the only thing on there would be the down comforter), I happened to see that some gifts have been purchased.

Now, I'm really excited to be getting some of our china, but I also feel a little...guilty. Like I've sneaked a peek at Christmas presents in mid-December, and now Christmas morning won't be nearly as much fun.

But right now, I feel like that kid that can't possibly stand to wait one more minute to see what Santa has brought. Yesterday another UPS box was at our door, and my shower is this weekend. But I would also hate for Saturday to roll around and there be very little in the way of surprises.

Did sneaking a peek at your registry take away any of the fun of opening up gifts?

Exciting package!

The wedding invitations are out, the shower invitations are out, and we have passed the two month mark. What does that mean?

We received our first wedding present in the mail!

I'm not sure why this is so exciting, but there is something extremely fun about getting packages in the mail. Calvin's aunt sent us our very first thing off of our registry:

A sweet down comforter. Which is especially appropriate because it is still cool here in Michigan.

What was the first gift you received off of your registry?

Registry take 4: Household items continued

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were less than thrilled with our Macy's experience, and were still on the search for a china pattern.

On a whim, we decided to check out Dillard's at Beachwood Place- to both check out jewelry for the day (I'm on the hunt for earrings) and to see what their china looked like.

There were several patterns that we liked, and while the registry person was helping another bride and her mom (who had made an appointment), she was as attentive as she could be towards us. As a bonus, Dillard's had a table set up with a tablecloth, and we were encouraged to "try out" as many place settings as we wanted, to get a sense of how things would look on a table. (This try out was also encouraged for crystal and flatware. I thought the whole thing was pretty nifty, as you could really see how everything would look together.)

We set down a whole number of place settings, and one clear winner emerged:

Stratford Platinum by Noritake.

Platinum banded for Calvin, interesting shape/design for me. After we found it, we kept talking about it, and unlike every other china pattern, we were increasingly excited about it. (I'm serious. Calvin is about as excited about the china as I am. No joke.)

While silver is not available in stores, it is available to be ordered from a store- and the website. And they carried our pattern (at a cheaper price than Macy's!). We were sold on Dillard's. Having also gone through the registry process at three other stores, we decided to do this one completely online.

The online registry is the most awesome registry we have come across. Seriously. It is smart about adding/removing items, and is updated instantly. And we have yet to get the dreaded "this registry is temporarily unavailable" message.

The return policy is more strict (returns must be within 30 days of the wedding, and you get gift cards), and while the registry completion incentive is large (20% discount), it is more challenging to use (must be used in the store, 2-4 months after the wedding). These are drawbacks (especially since there isn't a Dillard's in Michigan, where we live), but thus far, we are happy with the registry experience.

Anyone else register at Dillard's? What was your experience?

Registry take 3: the "fun" stuff (and a weekly update)

Having after considering kitchen gear and regular household items, it was time to consider the "fun stuff."

Since before we were officially engaged, Calvin has wanted to register at Crate and Barrel. While I like the store quite a bit, Calvin really likes it. And after registering at our other places, we had not yet seen everyday place settings (dishes and flatware) that we liked.

After all, our current dishes are a mix of china that Calvin got at a huge yard sale for $4 (a real hodgepodge- think 11 plates, 3 bowls, 12 cups and saucers, 7 smaller plates in a really ugly pattern) and a set of dishes my grandmother got on clearance at Marc's when I was graduating college. Our flatware? A current mix of spoons, knives and forks with fake wood handles and various utensils permanently borrowed from our undergrad dining hall and the various college houses in which we lived.

A not great picture of Calvin's yard sale china from here.

We've been thinking that it's time for a bit of an upgrade. So off to Crate and Barrel we went.

The people at Crate and Barrel were friendly and helpful when we needed help, but for the most part we were left on our own, which works for us. After much debate between us, Calvin acquiesced and we did not put square plates on our registry. (Seriously. This was a months-long debate. Calvin wanted square, white dishes. While I would have preferred colorful round dishes, I was willing to get white, so long as they were round. Square dinner plates strike me as being a bit too trendy, and as I have mentioned before, once I decide on something, I have it forever.)

Here are the compromise plates:

Aspen Dishes

It was a compromise, and Calvin did put a square serving platter or two on the registry:

Entree Square Platter

Rectangle Large Plate

We also registered for flatware, glasses, and smaller kitchen items, as well as other serving dishes (and an ice bucket! How much easier hosting parties will be!). Overall, we've been pretty happy with Crate and Barrel; the online registry is much easier to use than Macy's or Williams-Sonoma, and the selection is pretty decent.

I am curious, though, to find out if anyone else had a situation similar to our square/round plate debate. What compromises did you make with your partner about what to put on the registry?

(Weekly exercise update: I did at home strength training one day, ran once, and swam once. Not great, but I've got great aspirations for this upcoming week- and my pants are starting to fit the tiniest bit looser. How are you doing?)

Registry take 2: Household items

After taking care of the kitchen gadgets, it was time to move onto other items.

While it may seems silly to register for things like towels or sheets, we only have one set of sheets that really fits our bed (the other doesn't have pockets deep enough for our mattress), and our towels are basically what we used in college (i.e. they have oh so lovely bleach marks due to clearasil and they don't match. I know that they still function fine without matching, a part of me really would like them to match.)

At the recommendation of our mothers, we also decided to register for china. Calvin and I are inheriting my great-grandmother's china (the set is round plates with a platinum band), but it would also be nice to have a set that is dishwasher safe. I grew up in a house where china and silver were used at least once a month for special occasions, so I knew that I wanted to register for silver as well.

Since we live in Michigan but are getting married in Ohio, we also wanted to make sure that we registered at a place that was in both places. We checked out Bed, Bath and Beyond, but they don't carry silver. Turns out many other places also do not carry silver. So we turned to the ubiquitous Macy's, although neither of us are really big fans of the store.

(I really liked Kaufman's and Marshall Fields better than "the new" Macy's. There's something about Macy's that just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the way that they went about the conversion to a single brand. Or how they failed to do market research on the Midwest and were confused when sales were down after the conversion. Or how corporate seems to look down on those of us from the middle of the country. We're not country bumpkins just because we live in "flyover country.")

Figuring that the Macy's at the Somerset Collection would have the largest selection, we made a trip out there.

We arrived at the store, and were directed to their bridal registry department, which included multiple desks with various registry...attendants? experts? helpers? set up to help out registering couples. The woman we spoke with was helpful (and I liked the feature of the registry that suggested how many items to register for based on the number of invited guests), but some things bothered me. Calvin was originally placed as the primary registrant (we've gone out of our way to make it evident that he is an equal part of this) but the woman switched it so that I was the primary registrant, since the primary receives a free subscription to Modern Bride magazine. This was annoying. There was another bride and groom who had come in with a large number of returns, and greater attention was paid to them. (They looked wealthy. They were returning really expensive gifts. And she had a very large engagement ring. I'm not saying that they received better service because they had money, but it appeared that way.)

But we were given a well-made red bag (same as what Miss Bubblgum received), which was nice bonus.

We were also given a scanner gun, and were sent on our merry way.

Choosing sheets and towels was fairly easy, as was choosing our silver pattern.

Rosepoint by Wallace Silversmiths

China was another story. We didn't see anything that really caught our eye. Over the holidays, we kept going back to Macy's (in a whole variety of locations- both in Michigan and Ohio), and just didn't see anything that we loved, which was a bit annoying.

I also learned while visiting a store in Cleveland that no store in the area actually carries silver in stock- which was the whole reason for registering there. This was annoying.

Finally, their online registry, much like Williams-Sonoma, seemed to be down quite a bit of the time. And neither of us really liked that the registry was tied to weddingchannel.com.

On a whim while in Cleveland, we decided to check out another department store for china- and we ended up closing our entire Macy's registry as a result of the china.

Anyone else register at Macy's? What was your experience?

Registry take 1: Kitchen Gear

Over the past couple of months, we decided to register for wedding presents at a variety of places. It was important for us (me) to make sure that the items on our list really are things that we want for a long time to come.

(Sidenote: My mom sometimes teases me about how I will search high and low for exactly what I want, and when I find it, that's it. I will have it forever, or until it wears out, whichever comes first.)

We cook a lot- 4+ nights a week, not counting the nights that we do a quick meal courtesy of Trader Joe's frozen food aisle. Our current pots and pans are my grandmother's Revereware, as well as a cast iron skillet and a stockpot that we picked up at a discount closeout store.

Image found here.

Seeing as the pots have outlived my grandmother, I would say that she really was set for life. Too bad that modern Revereware is not nearly as awesome.

My grandmother's pots work fine, but the handles don't always insulate against the heat. We decided on All-Clad.

Image found here.

I've become enamored with All-Clad's saucier pan after hearing rave reviews about it on Indiebride.

Saucier pan available here.

It seems that Williams-Sonoma is the only place that carries that amazing saucier pan our of all the typical registry locations. So of we went to Williams-Sonoma.

When we arrived (6ish on a Saturday evening), the store was pretty empty. There was some confusion when we were filling out the paperwork, but it was eventually straightened out. We had done our research and knew pretty much exactly for what we wanted to register. Only exception was knives.

We also spent close to two hours trying out every single knife in the store. The woman that was helping us was well-informed and patient as we went back and forth between several knives. Eventually, we settled on the Wusthof Culinar- mostly because it felt the best in my hands. (Calvin recognized that between the two of us, I'm the one who is more likely to cut myself.)

Wusthof Culinar.

Calvin did pick out a Shun Kaji Santoku that he loves, and added that as well.

Calvin's dream knife.

We did register for the All-Clad pots and pans, as well as other miscellaneous kitchen items, like cookie sheets, muffin tins and a mortar and pestle. During this time, we were left alone, which suited us just fine.

Overall, our experience setting up a registry at Williams-Sonoma was fine. There was some confusion when we were filling out the paperwork, and our password to update online didn't work at first, but things are set up now. Updating the registry online is a different story; things aren't immediately added or removed, making it difficult to make sure that items were actually added or removed. I've got 2 single wine glasses that we put on the registry that took way more tries than it should have in order to remove them. And the registry server seems to be down periodically- and by periodically, I mean nearly every time I try and update it- which is irritating.

Anyone else want to share their experience with Williams-Sonoma? (And has anyone else having difficulty with the online portion of the registry?)

Christmas gift

(I know that this post would have been better last week, but life was really hectic with all the travel. And it is still Christmastide according to the church calendar.)

Little known secret: Calvin makes sourdough bread about once a week. To do this, he has been using this mixer from his grandmother. (He also makes kolach/kalac and nut roll. Yes, he is Hungarian.)

The ubiquitous Kitchenaid artisan mixer can be found here.

The thing is, both of us grew up with families that cooked and baked a ton. Both of our mothers have burned out multiple mixers. (For my mom, it was typically during Christmas cookie baking; my family's sugar cookie dough is tough on mixers.)

Sure enough, over the holidays, I made those sugar cookies, and the gears started grinding. (It wasn't even a double batch! No way would this mixer last through kids. No way.) It hasn't seized yet, but it sounds like weekly sourdough bread and holiday cookies have begun to wear it out. So we decided to go industrial strength (like our moms) and put this on our registry.

The big Kitchenaid mixer.

Calvin's mom a long time ago said that she would be getting us the mixer for the wedding. But she didn't wait until the wedding; waiting for us under the Christmas tree this past holiday was a giant box.

It was the mixer.

Both of us were so excited about getting this piece of kitchen equipment. I don't think that we jumped up and down when we got it, but that's what it felt like.

I know we can't be the only people who wanted to skip around after getting a mixer. What wedding gift have you received that made you jump for joy?