Why I dislike Bed Bath & Beyond.
Reflecting back on it, I find that BB&B is a rip-off. BB&B prices tend to be higher for identical items vs. other stores and the best discounts they offer are the ubiquitous 20% off a single item coupons that you get in the mail every other week. I recently realized that the most frequent reason most people step foot into a BB&B store is to buy a gift for somebody else (usually a wedding gift). The registry becomes a problem if it is a store that you do not frequent because at least a few of your guests will be giving you gift cards. We received about $300 worth of gift cards for Bed Bath & Beyond. How am I going to spend $300 there? We already registered for, and received everything we could possibly want from the place but now we have a pile of gift cards for a store we never go to. The best we can probably do is use the gift cards to buy gifts for the other people registered at BB&B.
One positive aspect of Bed Bath & Beyond is that when you come in to register for gifts as a soon-to-be-wed couple, the staff treats you like royalty. When they hand you that item zapper you feel awesome. The kind of awesome that can only be satisfied by good old fashioned American consumerism. You yearn to zap everything you ever saw on TV, every slap-chop, blender, food processor, fluffy blanket, and towel you can find. And zap you will, because Bed Bath and Beyond has a rather large selection of items.
Despite the wide selection, however, I think the high prices, poor discounts, and overall uselessness of the store make BB&B a poor registry choice. If you're going to over-pay for kitchen accessories I think you should go all out and pick a high end registry store such as Sur La Table or Williams Sonoma instead of Bed Bath and Beyond. If you're going to make your guests buy you expensive stuff, make it expensive stuff that will last forever.