I must say...I have great taste.

I did not want a registry.

At all.

It was a long, hard fight I fought until today.

Today, I relaxed, let go of the bridal-guilt, didn't look too closely at the price tag, and thought:

'oooh, that rose bowl looks so cute and omgwant. i will love it and hug it and call it my precious every day'

'i've been wanting those balloon wine glasses by mikasa since I first saw them'

'gosh these 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets are soooooofffft'

'i can see myself serving Christmas dinner for the rest of my life to my family with this china pattern'

All in all, we ended up with roughly 108 gifts. This amount includes when we requested more than one of the same item, like 8 place settings of that fancy-ass china I mentioned earlier (the store recommended twelve. TWELVE. As if. Eight is all I could stomach).

We have a good mix of price points - A LOT of our gifts are in the 25-50$ or 50-75$ range. We have five gifts over 200$ - and three of those I do NOT expect to actually receive. We put them on our registry because we desperately need them, and we have a year after the wedding to complete our registry, with 10% off (okay, so the 46" LCD flat screen isn't quite a 'desperate need', but if it arrives in our house, then I can get rid of the ugly fake wood humongous wall unit that currently dominates the living room and has our current TV residing inside it. With Keith's blessing. HALLELUJAH!)

The other two items were a couch with a pull-out bed (we live in a one-bedroom apartment; the pull-out bed is a necessity) and a love seat in the same colour (gray!). The sectional we have right now is beyond finished. It's ten years old, and an ugly purple red velvet, and just...it's gross, okay? I've been begging Keith to replace it with absolutely no success for the last year. (Actually, that's a lie. I hated them from the beginning). And today, I succeeded. I'm getting new couches, folks. New, pretty couches that weren't picked up from the curb, or passed along for free, or here when I moved in. New couches that reflect my taste, style and design aesthetic. Sigh. Right now I don't care if I'm seen as being greedy for putting a couch and loveseat on my registry - I don't expect my guests to buy them for me. They're just there so I have an extra year and 10% off when I go purchase them.

Anyway. I got off track. Wanna see some of the absolutely gorgeous things I Keith and I spent hours discussing, comparing, and selecting with the vision of still using them 30 years from now?

Larabee Dot Rose Bowl by Kate Spade

Five piece place settings: Platinum Wave by Noritake

4.5 quart cobalt blue stoneware baking dish, by Le Creuset

Set of 4: Balloon wine goblets, Cheers by Mikasa

Four piece place settings: Ikat by Vera Wang

Flatware, set of five; Aquarius by Oneida.