What’s The Worst Thing To Buy Off A Wedding Registry?

Asking for a friend.

The last wedding gift I purchased was a panic purchase, made in the eleventh hour before actually attending the event. I had intended on buying the bethrothed two spoon rests, one in the shape of a Bichon Frise, the other in the shape of a very fat cat. The couple had registered for these gifts; they were affordable and honestly, everyone could use a spoon rest in the shpae of a dog. I added the items to my Amazon cart and let them sit there for weeks. By the time I remembered, nothing was left. The spoon rests had been bought weeks ago by someone more on top of it than me. As usual, I had played myself, once again.

The notion of a wedding registry to me feels rooted in a traditionalism that simply doesn’t apply anymore, when a couple coming together in matrimony really did need to re-furnish their kitchen with plates because both of them had nothing to begin with. Indeed, a wedding registry is actually just a traditin that stems from the sexist and dumb notion of a dowry — practical in ancient times but completely irrelevant now, for the most part. Taking a philosophical stance against the wedding registry feels right but usually makes me look like an ungrateful pig, content to show up at the wedding, drink four Manhattans at the reception and leave without paying my financial dues.

Multiple friends who are losing patience for my tirades against the institution of marriage and the notion of giving people presents for doing something that people do every day have told me to deal. “Just buy something off the registry. It’s fine. This really…isn’t a big deal,” they say. They’re right, of course. Modern etiquette exists as a set of rules and unspoken codes intended to ease the friction of social interactions. Despite my ideological resistance to the idea of a registry and all that it entails, I still have to do it. And that, my friends, is where the problem lies.

As a procrastinator by nature, prone to fretting about the things I need to do instead of actualy just doing them, when it’s time for me to purchase a gift for the nuptials of someone I care about, I am usually last to the table. Being forced to purchase from the dregs of the registry is worse than just ponying up the scratch and buying the dessert plates three months earlier. I’d like to think that the happy couple is thrilled that you bought them anything at all, even if it is just one placemat and a serving spoon that you bought the day before the wedding because you couldn’t afford the Dyson or the Vitamix. But buying from the dregs of the registry — the single wineglass, the replaecment Brita water filter, the pizza cutter on sale — feels worse.

Does a wedding present assign a dollar amount to your relationship to the bride or a groom? Is buying an ice cream scoop for $11 off the registry for your best friend a noticeable offense? Is it necessary to explain to someone why you bought them what you did, or will they just be grateful that you came to their wedding, bought them something nice, and cried happy tears at the ceremony? What’s the absolute worst thing one could buy off a registry?

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