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The Zen of Registries: Two Toasters and a Backstreet Boy

October 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Vocal group, Backstreet Boys became one of the...

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Oh no! Aunt Ida and your BFF both brought a toaster to your shower. Panic! Registry Drama!

Wait- don’t get all worked up.  Breathe deeply and contemplate The Zen of Registries.  Personal testimony – the Backstreet Boys completely changed my perspective on the headaches of wedding registries.  Read on.

In the year 2000, at a monastery high on a mountaintop in the Himalayas…ok,ok, a bit much.

In the year 2000, on the 7th floor of a downtown Los Angeles office building,  WeddingChannel.com received a call from a giggling teenage girl asking to go to the Backstreet Boys’ wedding.  We had no idea that Brian (and his fellow Backstreeter Kevin Richardson) were both registered,  and we were unprepared for the deluge of lovesick calls that followed.  Our Macy’s counterparts were  swamped with fake orders.  After a million phone calls to managers and agents, and one conversation with Brian himself, we got it straightened out.

Are you still in the lotus position, and concentrating on your breathing? Imagine trying to untangle that mess.  Think back to your toasters.  Do they merit high anxiety? And the most important question to contemplate: Can you believe I got to talk to an actual Backstreet Boy on the phone?  OMG, you guys!!!!

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The Zen of Wedding Registries: Two Toasters and a Backstreet Boy

October 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Vocal group, Backstreet Boys became one of the...

Image via Wikipedia

Oh no! Aunt Ida and your BFF both brought a toaster to your shower. Panic! Registry Drama!

Wait- don’t get all worked up.  Breathe deeply and contemplate The Zen of Registries.  Personal testimony – the Backstreet Boys completely changed my perspective on the headaches of wedding registries.  Read on.

In the year 2000, at a monastery high on a mountaintop in the Himalayas…ok,ok, a bit much.

In the year 2000, on the 7th floor of a downtown Los Angeles office building,  WeddingChannel.com received a call from a giggling teenage girl asking to go to the Backstreet Boys’ wedding.  We had no idea that Brian (and his fellow Backstreeter Kevin Richardson) were both registered,  and we were unprepared for the deluge of lovesick calls that followed.  Our Macy’s counterparts were  swamped with fake orders.  After a million phone calls to managers and agents, and one conversation with Brian himself, we got it straightened out.

Are you still in the lotus position, and concentrating on your breathing? Imagine trying to untangle that mess.  Think back to your toasters.  Do they merit high anxiety? And the most important question to contemplate: Can you believe I got to talk to an actual Backstreet Boy on the phone?  OMG, you guys!!!!

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Filed Under: advice, celebrity weddings, humor, shopping, weddings Tagged With: , , , , , ,

My Little Etiquette Shop: Graceful handling of Gift Gaffes

June 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
This is the gift table that my sister made.

If the invitation says "no gifts, please," bringing a gift anyway is not good form.

Today we’ll address a guest issue from the Bride’s perspective – but all you guests-to-be out there listen up!  Spare the bride and groom some trouble (see below) and play along.  On to the question.

Q:   Hi My Little Etiquette Shop,

We are going with ”no gifts” at our wedding. In my experience some guests bring   gifts anyway, and those who don’t feel very uncomfortable. Can this be avoided?

-testing out of the gifted program

A:  Testy,

The short answer is no.  People bring gifts because they love you.  You cannot (nor would you want to) change that.  You can, however, plan to handle these items so as not to inspire guilt in those who have correctly followed the presence not presents protocol.  1) Do not have any tables near the front of the space that could be used for gifts.  2) Assign someone you trust, and that people know (college aged is ideal) to be outside the entrance to intercept possible packages. Make sure he/she has a boutonniere or corsage so that Aunt Eunice doesn’t think there’s a tuxedoed bandit in the parking lot of First Unitarian Church.  Have your helper bring things to an established (safe) place. Ta da!  No sign of gifts = no guilt.

Note to guests: “no gifts” = no gifts. It does not mean “Oh they don’t really mean that.”

Happy Fourth everyone!  Flowers are safer than fireworks, FYI.


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Wait a minute Mr. Postman…I’ve never been to Lord &Taylor. Why do I get their catalog?

June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Williams-Sonoma's primary and West Coast flags...

Williams Sonoma's Flagship in San Francisco

Opening the mailbox sometimes can be overwhelming as a wedding professional. We get ads for every new wedding product imaginable from really gorgeous new dresses to dreadful things like bridal toilet decor. (We passed on that, creative though it was).
New brides-to-be also are surprised to find themselves drowning in mail, particularly after creating bridal registries.  Everywhere you go, someone (legitimately) needs your name and address, and suddenly you’re getting catalogs from every store under the sun. Some of them are cool!  Before you go to the bridal salon, it’s good to find a few foundation garments that work for you to bring along, so that Bare Necessities catalog that showed up could be handy.  Williams-Sonoma, Macy’s, Crate and Barrel, if you haven’t firmed up all your registries, maybe these catalogs will help you figure out a few more things you want to add.  But then you start seeing CB2, Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware, and then Design Within Reach, the Home Decorator’s collection…and it eventually devolves into Country Curtains. Way too much mail order decor. You don’t need all of that, and neither does the environment.  But they keep coming.  And as the companies sell their lists, you get more and more.
There is a remedy:  a brilliant non-profit called  Catalog Choice . They keep your in-box manageable and give the forests a fighting chance.  They work with all sorts of junk mail – more than the name implies.  You can keep the stores you want, and stop the ones you don’t.   All from one easy to use dashboard.  For free!
After all, your mailbox needs room for all those phonebook sized bridal mags.  Plus, one of your great grand-kids might want an outdoor wedding of their own some day.  Let’s leave them some trees, shall we?
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