I must admit, I have enjoyed the process of creating gift registries for our wedding and it has been a learning process as well. Actually, everything that has to do with wedding has been a learning process and I would have never imagined there are so many details, rules and etiquette to consider.

But back to the registry experience. Ideally, I would have just preferred if everyone gave us checks, regardless of size, and we would have figured out what we want once we can go to the store and shop based on where we end up living etc. But, you can’t do that as it’s not nice to ask for money in Persian culture (as well as many others I am guessing, except for Italian where I hear it does pay off to get married). So what if you left it to the guests judgment to choose whatever they want? Well, for one I know how much I don’t like buying gifts myself, since I never seem to know what to buy so I would not want to do that to our guests. Another reason not to leave it to guests’ own choice is because, generally speaking, the standard wedding gift given by Persians is crystal vase. Why Persians as a population believe that is all a newly wed couple need I have no idea though. So, in order to avoid being forced into changing career and opening a crystal vase selling store after the wedding it is wise to have a gift registry.

So we started, on Macy’s, Crate & Barrell and Amazon (well no hardcore electronic store seemed to have wedding registry functionality on their website so I chose Amazon and the ones that had something in lines with registry were only gift certificates which goes back to asking for money = big no no). So I have been like a kid in a candy store trying to pick stuff that I like and know we will need (need is a relative term here). At the same time it gave me a chance to be able to dive into all sorts of specs and compare products to the left and right which I love (and probably why I was called a gadget freak by friends). So now that the dust has settled, I feel proud to have been able to have found the best of the best electronics (with my Finance’s approval on color and design choices of course). The only thing that remains is for the guests to actually look at the items and buy them, instead of saying to themselves: Do they really think I am going to pay $600 for flat LCD screen or $450 for a home theater system? and then bring a crystal vase instead.

Time will tell which choice they will make…