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.
Kohl’s Gift Registry
Looking back on it, I kind of wish we had registered at Kohl's for our gift registry rather than Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Why I like Kohl's.
Kohl's already has good prices when things are not on sale. The bonus is that Kohl's almost always has a sale going on. I get Kohl's advertisements even more frequently than Bed Bath & Beyond. Case in point: Kohl's regularly has specials to discount 15% your entire purchase. They have early bird sales, night owl sales, weekday sales, secret sales, you name it. After discounts you would probably bay about half of what you would pay at BB&B. The selection of kitchen items may be limited but Kohl's has enough decent Calphalon and KitchenAid and OXO stuff to competently fill a kitchen at a price that won't leave your guests hating you. And, when everybody ends up giving you gift cards you will still be able to use the money to buy some Levi's jeans, shoes, and perhaps some cheap jewelry and/or perfume -- stuff you can't get at Bed Bath and Beyond.
Visit Deals.Waitingfor.me for an up-to-date list of discounts and promotions at Kohl's as well as the Kohl's online catalog.
The first wedding you attend as a married couple is awesome.
It happens to be a blockbuster year for weddings. We have potentially eight (8!) weddings to go to this year in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Michigan, New York, Los Angeles (x2) and possibly Chicago. That's a lot of flights and a lot of presents.
Now that our wedding has come and gone we are looking forward to attending our friends' weddings so that we can appreciate the decor, food, and soak in all the festivities and drink and dance and carry on without worry about looking sloppy in our pictures and wedding videos. I am especially looking forward to the Las Vegas wedding because we've never been to a wedding in Las Vegas itself. I wonder if it will be as awesomely campy as the movies, or if it will be a standard wedding.
Don’t go to Kauai for your honeymoon if you like to eat.
The food in Kauai was, for the most part, mediocre. We had mostly mediocre meals, and then some really terrible meals on the Island.
Good
Breakfast buffets in Grand Hyatt Po'ipu
Postcards in Hanalei
Lappert's Ice Cream everywhere
Lunch on Captain Andy's Zodiac Boat Tour
Okay
Puka Dog in the Po'ipu Shopping Village
Toi's Thai Kitchen in Ele'ele
The Beach House Restaurant in Koloa
Hamura's Saimin Stand in Lihu'e
Sandwiches on Zip n Dip tour on Princeville Ranch
Sandwiches on tubing tour near Hanamaulu
Tomkats Grille in old Koloa town.
Horrible
Paradise Bar and Grill