Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Wild Wedding Weekend, Pt. 2 of 3


Okay. So we left off with the saga of us trying to get our invitations ordered (in case you were wondering, good ol’ Willie still hasn’t confirmed or denied his receipt of our response and we still may or may not have invitations, so I am still considering my door to door option…)

Anyway, let’s move on to the remainder of Saturday. We began by going to Bryant’s Rent-All here in Lexington to get some prices on a few rental options for the reception. We needed to price buffet serving pans, silverware, napkins, chair covers, lighting, cake stand, and a few other random things. We were actually pleasantly surprised by the prices and found that most things were actually either cheaper to rent, or at least comparable pricing to buying. And we don’t want to buy a lot of these types of things because obviously we will not ever need them again. A very sweet woman (Peggy? Sue?? Jane????) helped us and gave us a great price quote sheet to take home and digest. I think we have made some decisions and will be making our rental reservations soon!!!

After this stop came the big mac daddy task of registering. Shew! Now, I love to shop. But this was a long, exhausting day! And I have to give major props to my Andrew. He really stuck with me all day and didn’t complain at all.

So we began at Macy’s. This was our first big stop on the registry. We found a stray associate in the shoe department and she was kind enough to direct us to the proper location for registry. I honestly didn’t have a clue how it all worked. I thought the stray shoe associate would just give us a scan gun and send us along our merry way. I didn’t realize how formal it all was!

The lady who got us started was very, very kind. Her name was Susan, and she was very sweet and excited for us. At least she pretended to be excited for us because it’s her job, so that was nice. We had to wait a while before she could work with us because apparently an associate had called off that day for the next three months due to an injury. So Susan didn’t really have time. But she got us all set up online and gave us our scan gun and a quick tour of the store, and then she set us free.

Oh. My. Word. First of all, our Macy’s is huge. Not NYC huge, but large enough that a bitch was tired, mmmK? We walked and walked and walked. We were lost in a sea of china and flatware and bedding and sheets, oh my. It was all so overwhelming! I felt like I had been given allll this power with my little scan gun, yet I didn’t know how to use the power. I didn’t know where to begin. We spent at least 20 minutes deciding on pillows, and then we quickly learned that if we spent 20 minutes on every item, we would never. Leave. The. Store. Ever. Andrew was pretty much ready to go after the pillows, so I gave him some quick encouragement. We walked through bedding and bath, and I was feeling as overwhelmed as he looked, so I cheerfully told him we didn’t have to pick these things here, we could pick them at Bed, Bath, & Beyond which is our other registry location. Even though it required more time and shopping, he seemed delighted that we could just check it off the list here and move on to the next thing.

We then roamed our way into the Kitchen area. Damn. Did y’all know there are approximately 2,589 different types of gadgets to use in your kitchen?! I mean, there are things that slice, dice, cook your meal, and raise your children. It was insane!! I let Andrew do a large portion of the picking things out here since he’s a big cook and kitchen guy, but even he began to go cross-eyed. I lost him somewhere around the time I began to pick out our glasses. I held one up to get his opinion and he had poofed away. We were both feeling it by this point. It had been almost 2 hours in the store. At one point, he held up a nice big Wok and asked for it, and he swears I shook my head and said “NO!” and walked away. I don’t have a memory of this. I was so overwhelmed and trying to look at everything that I probably was just saying to myself, “NO. Make it stop!!” When he pointed my reaction out, I felt awful, and ran over and scanned his Wok. He was happy. Then he took off to go sit in the furniture department and rest on a couch whilst I looked at the remaining gadgets.

We re-connected and I assured him the last thing I needed to do was dishes. We REALLY want a nice set of everyday-use dishes. We don’t feel the need to register for fine China. We just aren’t really formal people and I don’t feel the need to have a nice set of Chinaware that will likely set in a cabinet for years at a time between uses. So instead, I wanted to make sure our everyday use items were my favorite pick.

Andrew trucked back to the couches and had a seat in a stray display area. I pretty much knew what I wanted, and I went straight to them. But to my dismay, they didn’t come in the nice big 45-piece set. And I wanted that, for an 8-piece table setting, despite my mother’s wishes for me to register plate by plate. So I had to hunt down Susan, who actually found the set for me online and settled the matter.

Finally, after what seemed like 12 days, we wrapped up our registry and got our online account set-up, and were able to crawl out of the store. Andrew need sustenance or he may or may not have actually made it to the second store. We grabbed food and drink, and headed to Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

Totally. Different. Experience.

We were greeted by a manager, who escorted us back to the Wedding Registry Desk. Here, ladies and gentleman, we met Tyler. Ohhhh Tyler. Ohhhh how I adored Tyler. He was a seemingly innocent, somewhat younger little man who I believe may or may not have been a pocket gay. Immediately after we finished gushing over my new peach Jessica Simpson bag, he offered to lock it up for me, and then offered us some nice ice cold water to sip on whilst we shopped.

We found ourselves in bedding first, and Tyler was holding a copy of our Macy’s registry in one hand, and a scan gun in the other. I thought that was where we would part, as we had with Susan, and the crazy would begin again soon. But no, no, no, no, no. Tyler kept that gun. And he began to be our personal shopper. It was awesome! He flitted about giving us his honest opinion on every item we were considering. He owned about half of what I wanted and offered his advice. We spent a good amount of time in bedding picking out the perfect comforter, sheets, curtains, and more. He broke upon the bags so I could feel things. He blatantly showed his disgust when I glanced at something ugly. He pranced about happily when I chose the Wamsutta sheet sets. He very quickly deducted two things:

  1. I love purple. And the more purple he showed me, the better.
  2. Andrew mostly wanted to pick what I liked best. So he basically just started showing me pretty things and waited for the approving glance from Andrew and scanned away.

We skipped and prancercised our way through bath and bedding, we gallantly strutted through the kitchen section, and we stayed happy all the while. Andrew would periodically disappear to go look at grilling things and manly items, and Tyler would squeal with glee and direct me to purple things that I didn’t need. (I’m proud to say I mostly looked, and he only scan gunned a few items!) And let me tell you, this little guy knew his stuff! He could talk his way around every item we picked up. He threw the un-breakable china on the floor to show how it wouldn’t break. He slammed the Tupperware canisters to show how they were shatter-proof. He guided us gently away from more expensive items and showed us the equally effective off-brand version of certain things. And once, while Andrew was lost in the grill section, he delightfully guided me over to a GORGEOUS pasta serving set that was PURPLE AND PARIS!! I registered for that immediately, obv, and Andrew arrived as Tyler was entering the last scan.

I was having some trouble struggling with the pricing of items. We really want to offer a wide price range to those guests who wish to buy us a gift. We kept almost everything on the lower price end, but some things we just simply had no choice – i.e. dishes, glasses, silverware, bedding, etc. The big things. And I was struggling with scanning in these big ticket items. But Tyler gave me a reassuring pep talk and reminded me this is our wedding, our big day, and we should register for everything we truly need and want. Guests may choose to buy something, or they may not, but all I can do on my end is truly put out there what we need. So I did! Eeep!

As we finished up our registry with Tyler, he cheerfully brought back my Jessica Simpson bag (after he offered to “keep” it for me) and we finished up our online account set-up. He advised us to go home that night and not think about anything wedding related and just let it all go. Then, to re-visit the registry sites and remove and/or add anything we need to before we release the registry to all of our guests. So that is just what we did! Andrew was really happy by the time we finished this round of registering; even he loved Tyler’s positive attitude, and the fact that he kept us going quickly through the store. We didn’t feel over-whelmed, but instead left feeling happy and excited! We left the registry as-is, and this weekend I will re-visit it and do the final tweaking on it.

I am excited though. What an exciting thing – registering for our Wedding Gifts. Our WEDDING y’all!! Some days I still can’t wrap my head around all this, and then we’ll do something or see something or say something and it all becomes real again. We had a great time, made a good memory together, and hey – I got to shop all day! That’s never a bad thing.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the final part to our wedding weekend. This one includes a roadtrip to Ohio and the conclusion to the Willie Dick saga. Dunh dunh….DUNH!

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