Buying Off The Registry. WAY Off.

Why restrict yourself to toasters and mixing bowls?

Wedding presents are an opportunity to be creative. You’re not obligated to plonk down $50 for beige hand towels! For the same price, but often greater satisfaction, you can find something outlandish and memorable in the back corner of a couple’s registry, or you can even venture off the registry entirely. NPR’s Kat Chow shows us how it’s done in this Twitter thread.

One of the replies that came in was “a case of deodorant” for a couple that had registered at Costco. (“My only other option was sports bras. I picked the item that was easiest to wrap.”) Another described a cordless drill as their “go to gift” that’s “always well received.” Speaking as someone whose cordless drill has often been borrowed by friends, and as someone who borrowed a cordless drill off other friends before my little household got its own, that seems super great to me. Deodorant perhaps … less so? Undeniably useful, though.

Registries are funny things. Some people curate theirs obsessively, filling them with china patterns, silver dishes, and Le Creuset. Others only create a cursory one out of a sense of duty and would be thrilled by something thoughtful, whether or not they had included it on their list. Some people appreciate it when you go Etsy on them. Others resent it. You have to really consider the people in question, and when you don’t know them well enough to consider them effectively, or when you don’t have time, then sure, buy them a bath mat and be done with it.

But when you do know the couple, and you have some discretionary income, gift-giving can be a fun challenge. For one wedding recently, I gave Bride #1 an engraved wine glass and Bride #2 a matching beer stein. That kind of thing is fun to do because you can include a note saying, “I hope you have many more occasions to celebrate in the years to come!” or “A toast to the numerous anniversaries and other happy days ahead!” For another, I gave a couple a mix of wine glasses and water glasses with a note saying that the right partner is sturdy enough for every day but exciting enough for the holidays too. And when imagination fails, there’s always the MoMA store.

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