And what about registry completion? I was surprised and pleased to find out about this helpful feature of many bridal registries. It means that after your wedding, whatever is not gifted to you, you and your new spouse can then buy for a certain percentage off. Say you registered for eight butter dishes and only received three as gifts. Then you can go buy the remaining (and essential) five butter dishes for 10% off (depending on the store’s deal.) Even better: if you want some really expensive kitchen contraption that you think nobody’s going to buy you (in my case, a $400 sparkling water maker,) put it on your registry anyway. Best case scenario, some fairy godmother/father comes through and gifts it to you. Worst case scenario, you buy it for yourself after the wedding using the store’s registry completion discount deal.

Here are some popular registries and the incentives they offer:

Bed Bath and Beyond: Lots of different incentives based on brands, like if you register for $500 worth of Calphalon stuff, you get a free Santoku knife ($300 value.) Upon registry completion, there are more (and fancier!) gifts offered by brand, like if you get $299 of Samsonite or American Tourister goods, you get a free Boarding Bag upon completion.

Macy’s: Although it appears that Macy’s has removed the links for registry discounts from their site, I would advise brides and grooms to ask in-store. Last I checked they had a pretty decent discount (10-15%) for registry completion.

Crate and Barrel: Calphalon and All-Clad offer free gifts with a certain dollar amount of registry.

And one last quick tip: Check out alternative registries like

Honeyfund.com

Uncommon Goods

JustGive.org

Happy registry!