WHAT TO PUT ON YOUR WEDDING REGISTRY

What to Register For, Y’all — A Little Motherly Advice

By Kari Loth

Okay, y’all. Let’s sit down and chat about your registry.

Here’s my best piece of advice, and I want you to really picture it: imagine you’re hosting Thanksgiving five years from now. What does that look like? Walk through it with me.

Are you in a home by then? Do you have a guest bathroom? Then you’ll want guest towels and all those little touches. Do you have a guest room? You’ll need bedding to make it cozy. Are you serving up the traditional turkey and all the sides? Then you need the roasting pan, the serving dishes, the platters for appetizers — all the things that make a table feel full and welcoming. And if you’ve got a yard now, well, you might just need a rake and some tools from Home Depot too!

Don’t forget your wedding day itself, either. You’ll want champagne flutes for the cake table and a pretty cake-cutting set for that first sweet slice together — and yes, you can register for those too!

I know a lot of you are in a sweet little apartment right now, and that’s just fine. But hear me on this — your wedding is the one time in your whole life when people are lining up to gift you these things. So think ahead, not just about the space you’re intoday.

A couple more motherly notes: if you’ve got a large guest count, or you’re having multiple showers, register for plenty. You’ll want enough to go around.

And here’s a question I get all the time: is it tacky to put a honeymoon fund or a house fund on your website? It used to be considered against the etiquette rules, bless their hearts, but times have changed. Nowadays most folks feel just fine gifting money toward something meaningful — a trip you’ll remember forever or the down payment on your first home. So don’t you fret about it one bit.

And for the love of everything, please register on Amazon. The free shipping makes it so much easier on your guests — and here’s the little secret every bride should know: once you’ve had $500 or more purchased off your Amazon registry, they’ll send you a one-time completion discount to finish off your list yourself. It’s 20% off for Prime members (10% if you’re not), good for 90 days after your big day. So all those odds and ends nobody grabbed? You can snag them at a discount. Then have a little fun and add a second registry somewhere special like Crate & Barrel for those dreamier pieces.

Trust me, y’all. Your future self — hosting that Thanksgiving — will thank you.