I'm back with more stories. I was thinking about this and I really don't know who would be interested in all my stories about this wedding but I'm glad I'm doing it anyway. It helps me get it all out so I don't completely overload all my friends with constant chatter about this subject. That doesn't mean I don't partially overwhelm some of them but I think it's helping anyway.
Today's story is about registering. Once upon a time it was decided that the prince and princess would register in the month of January. Okay, just kidding! We did decided that January would be the month to go for it though. I was SUPER excited. Even when I was only recently engaged one of the most exciting things a person could say to me was, "You get to register!" We had discussed a few stores as options. For awhile it was Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target. Then we talked about Registry 360 which is an online registry that lets you choose from a bunch of different stores. However, upon further research I realized that just about everyone has to be pretty tech-savvy to utilize this service. After some more discussion we decided on Target and Sears. Our first excursion was to Target. We went in, got signed up, took the gun and were off! Hours later we had barely scratched the surface. We probably registered for 10 items that day. There was so much discussion and blah blah blah. The both of us were exhausted, hungry, and starting to get grumpy. We called it a day and decided we'd continue later. About a week later we repeated the process in Sears. Matt was a little unhappy with the selection they had in store but we knew that we could continue online later so we pushed through. Once again, we left tired and a bit fed up with the whole process. When we got home that evening I felt that we could really accomplish a lot if I pulled up both registries online and just went for it. I spent the rest of the evening comparing and contrasting, reading reviews, and adding items to our registries. I still didn't finish but it was more than just a start. The next morning I woke up and brought the laptop back to bed with me. I was determined to finish the entire thing no matter what. I spent one full Sunday doing nothing but registering. I tried to match dishes and serving plates with table cloths and cloth napkins. I asked for Matt's opinion only when it was absolutely necessary. Finally, around 4 or 5 that afternoon I felt like I had all but finished. I needed Matt to do the last couple of items that were more important to him than me (a knife set and something else I can't remember). I refreshed both the registry pages and passed it on to him so he could do the last bit of shopping. There seemed to be a glitch with the Sears website but it had been fine no more than 60 seconds ago so I just asked him to pick his last two things from Target. Once that was done I was ready to celebrate. I cheered that we were done registering. I once again refreshed the pages so I could look at the final product but the Sears page still wasn't working. From there I searched our names, I tried logging out and logging in again, I did every silly thing I could think of but could not find our registry. The slow panic crept in. I tried to keep calm as I dialed the customer service number. The first person I spoke with barely spoke English and told me to re-start the computer and call him back if it didn't work. I felt pretty frustrated by this lame attempt at troubleshooting but I obliged him. Obviously it didn't bring back my registry so I called again. The second person I spoke with also struggled with a bit of a language barrier (I'm being nice here) and I think she really didn't even know what a registry is. Basically, she put me on hold for a long time, came back and asked a question that had nothing to do with my problem, put me on hold again (the second time she didn't even tell me she was going to do it) and ultimately disconnected the call. I re-dialed one final time and (YES) spoke with a person whose accent came from the East coast as opposed to the Middle East! She was quick and to the point and told me that there wasn't a whole lot she herself could do but that she'd forward my issue to the tech crew and I'd get a response in a couple of days. I felt better even though there was serious doubt about whether or not I would get our registry back. One week later I called again because I had not heard from anyone. That customer service rep told me to start over. HA! I told him that it was tough luck. There was no way I was going through this all over again. I'd rather choose another store and start over than offer Sears hundreds of dollars in business from my loved ones. He said he understood and thanked me for choosing Sears. Geez... This story ends with Matt and I having a short discussion about choosing JCPenney for our second store, me doing the registry _completely_ online at jcpenney.com, and finally posting the links on this website which, to me, makes it official. The moral of the story is... uh... I don't know. But I should tell you that you may not find a lot of items in the store if you happen to shop for my soon-to-be husband and me while you're out and about. Hopefully you are tech savvy because of the extreme amount of online registering we did. I have faith though. After all you are reading this, right?
Today's story is about registering. Once upon a time it was decided that the prince and princess would register in the month of January. Okay, just kidding! We did decided that January would be the month to go for it though. I was SUPER excited. Even when I was only recently engaged one of the most exciting things a person could say to me was, "You get to register!" We had discussed a few stores as options. For awhile it was Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target. Then we talked about Registry 360 which is an online registry that lets you choose from a bunch of different stores. However, upon further research I realized that just about everyone has to be pretty tech-savvy to utilize this service. After some more discussion we decided on Target and Sears. Our first excursion was to Target. We went in, got signed up, took the gun and were off! Hours later we had barely scratched the surface. We probably registered for 10 items that day. There was so much discussion and blah blah blah. The both of us were exhausted, hungry, and starting to get grumpy. We called it a day and decided we'd continue later. About a week later we repeated the process in Sears. Matt was a little unhappy with the selection they had in store but we knew that we could continue online later so we pushed through. Once again, we left tired and a bit fed up with the whole process. When we got home that evening I felt that we could really accomplish a lot if I pulled up both registries online and just went for it. I spent the rest of the evening comparing and contrasting, reading reviews, and adding items to our registries. I still didn't finish but it was more than just a start. The next morning I woke up and brought the laptop back to bed with me. I was determined to finish the entire thing no matter what. I spent one full Sunday doing nothing but registering. I tried to match dishes and serving plates with table cloths and cloth napkins. I asked for Matt's opinion only when it was absolutely necessary. Finally, around 4 or 5 that afternoon I felt like I had all but finished. I needed Matt to do the last couple of items that were more important to him than me (a knife set and something else I can't remember). I refreshed both the registry pages and passed it on to him so he could do the last bit of shopping. There seemed to be a glitch with the Sears website but it had been fine no more than 60 seconds ago so I just asked him to pick his last two things from Target. Once that was done I was ready to celebrate. I cheered that we were done registering. I once again refreshed the pages so I could look at the final product but the Sears page still wasn't working. From there I searched our names, I tried logging out and logging in again, I did every silly thing I could think of but could not find our registry. The slow panic crept in. I tried to keep calm as I dialed the customer service number. The first person I spoke with barely spoke English and told me to re-start the computer and call him back if it didn't work. I felt pretty frustrated by this lame attempt at troubleshooting but I obliged him. Obviously it didn't bring back my registry so I called again. The second person I spoke with also struggled with a bit of a language barrier (I'm being nice here) and I think she really didn't even know what a registry is. Basically, she put me on hold for a long time, came back and asked a question that had nothing to do with my problem, put me on hold again (the second time she didn't even tell me she was going to do it) and ultimately disconnected the call. I re-dialed one final time and (YES) spoke with a person whose accent came from the East coast as opposed to the Middle East! She was quick and to the point and told me that there wasn't a whole lot she herself could do but that she'd forward my issue to the tech crew and I'd get a response in a couple of days. I felt better even though there was serious doubt about whether or not I would get our registry back. One week later I called again because I had not heard from anyone. That customer service rep told me to start over. HA! I told him that it was tough luck. There was no way I was going through this all over again. I'd rather choose another store and start over than offer Sears hundreds of dollars in business from my loved ones. He said he understood and thanked me for choosing Sears. Geez... This story ends with Matt and I having a short discussion about choosing JCPenney for our second store, me doing the registry _completely_ online at jcpenney.com, and finally posting the links on this website which, to me, makes it official. The moral of the story is... uh... I don't know. But I should tell you that you may not find a lot of items in the store if you happen to shop for my soon-to-be husband and me while you're out and about. Hopefully you are tech savvy because of the extreme amount of online registering we did. I have faith though. After all you are reading this, right?