Regarding registries, when we were engaged, we decided that we should pick out a china pattern. We went to Macy’s and spent a long time looking. When we’d finally decided, the saleswoman said that since we were getting fine china, we’d have to get fine stemware to go with it. We looked at the prices of the very fragile stemware, looked at each other, and decided we were neither “fine stemware” not “fine china” types. We didn’t have a registry.
We recently looked at the registry of a couple who were getting married. We were taken aback at the rampant materialism — do they really need that $150 clothes steamer? We ended up writing them a check.