The ultimate shopping trip - a.k.a. wedding registry.

This whole wedding planning experience has been very interesting in many ways, one of which is the coming together of two very different cultures. Having grown up in Taiwan and moving to the US as a teenager, I grew up with very Chinese traditions. What Mark and I had envisioned for our wedding is one that blends our Chinese heritage with the Western traditions. Throughout this process, we learned that some things are definitely easier than others, which leads us to the dreaded registry experience vs. the Chinese tradition of red envelopes with monetary gifts inside.

Truth be told, given the size of our San Francisco apartment and our (hopeful) move to a house (if we can ever find a piece of property we are capable of buying that we like!), we can't imagine having even more boxes than we do today around us. It never ceases to amaze me how many "things" we own - since when has our lives become so supported by material goods? Guess it also doesn't help that I am some what of a pack rat, finding it hard to let go of old things with sentimental value.... In any case, all the more reason for us to follow the Chinese red envelope tradition.

We are mindful of the Western tradition of registry, however, and want to make sure that we provide our guests less familiar or comfortable with the Chinese red envelope tradition with some registry options. As a newly minted bride, for some reason, I have only heard of scary things about wedding registries (along the lines of "pain in the arse", " overwhelming!!!", etc.) Guess there was no way out of the scary registry experience after all! :)

Since Mark and I are headed to Hong Kong and Taiwan in less than a week, we figured we needed to crack the nut on the registry this weekend. Well, we all know how much Mark loves to shop... ;b NOT! Well, as it turned out, Mark hurt his big toe (we still have to look into what's going on when the doctor is available on Monday) and by Saturday morning, was immobile and has been on crutches ever since. Well, if Mark ever needed an excuse to get out of doing a registry, this was it. So, off to registering I went.

My first stop was at Bloomingdale's, given its convenient location to where we live and having heard from multiple other brides the great registry experience and the flexibility it offers. My intent was to have been there for one hour so I can hit up a couple of other stores - well, that is not the way things work with registering. Four hours later, I found my "registry consultant" telling me the importance of placemats and linens - these being the essential accents one must have multiple sets of to dramatically change the look of your table setting, without having to change the actual dishware. He convinced me that I needed one for the everyday, the fancy occasion, and then there is the holidays. I told him I was tired. By then, even my crutch-ridden fiance made his way to Bloomies to check in on me and rescue me from it all. Thank goodness for the Nespresso demo counter offering free coffee at Bloomies - I needed the caffeine boost major time.

Four and half hours later, we walked out of Bloomies with a "gift bag" filled with marketing material from every single manufacturer you can imagine and somewhat of a headache, but feeling good (at least we were told we should) about what we have"accomplished" on this ultimate shopping trip. I was happy to part with the scanner I had been walking around the store with zapping random items I wanted on the registry (I actually lost the scanner at one point). At the very least, we did very much like what we had picked out for our table setting. Whether we actually end up with those items or not, who knows, but at least we put a check mark next to that registry box.

For all the shopaholics out there, if you ever have the urge to shop, but don't have the money to buy, you may want to consider starting a registry (even if you are not engaged!)! Trust me, the registry experience will zap every desire to shop out of you. It's retail therapy in a twisted form.