There are countless perks that come along with marriage — tax breaks, 1,500 or so federal legal benefits and societal recognition of your relationship, for instance. Those are all dandy, but this week I want to talk about the KitchenAid stand mixers, the champagne flutes, the waffle irons, the 1200-threadcount bed sheets and the lush bath towels.
The bridal registry has always boggled me. Why should there be prizes for getting married? Better yet, why should I have to shell out $75 to $200 so you can feather your little love nest, while I eat off of mismatched IKEA plates? There was a time when I thought I’d become the crazy lady at the back of the chapel objecting to the about-to-be-consecrated union if I had to buy one more cookie sheet for a friend who I knew for a fact did not bake or designer china for a co-worker I didn’t even like.
You see, I actually do bake and I throw dinner parties where $100 a place setting china would come in very handy. So yes, the domestic diva in me was a little bitter that she wasn’t on the receiving end of all of these splendid gifts. Single people need plates and bath towels too!
Now that I’m a lot older and a little wiser (and a wedding might actually be in my near future), I’m starting to rethink my, um, rigid stance on bridal registries. Straight friends who might be reading this: Please disregard the paragraphs above. I wasn’t bitter about buying cookware for you. That was about other people, I swear.
So, as more lesbians are becoming brides, I wonder if we’ll hop on the registry bandwagon, or buy our own damn dishes, thank you very much. Let’s not forget that the original intent of a bridal registry was to arm soon-to-be housewives with all the paraphernalia they’d need to keep their new husbands happy and well fed. Things have obviously evolved a bit since June Cleaver’s era. But, that’s the not diminishing the popularity of the bridal registry — 88 percent of engaged couples set up a registry in 2010.
As much as I want fancy matching dishes and wine glasses that aren’t sold six for $4.50 by a certain Swedish mega-retailer, asking for gifts on a registry just feels kind of tacky. I mean, for every other year of our adult lives, we’re supposed to demur when asked what we’d like for our birthdays and tell everyone, “It’s the thought that counts,” when it comes to holiday gifts. But get a ring on your finger, and all of a sudden, you’re allowed to demand that everyone from your out-of-work BFF to your third cousins buy you pricey cookware and (often redundant) kitchen gadgets that you’ve hand picked?
And let’s face it, these days there aren’t a lot of 18-year-old blushing brides walking down the aisle without so much as a bowl or a blender to call their own. Straight or gay, by the time most of us get married, we’ve acquired the basics needed to run a household. Who wouldn’t love some upgrades? But does a wedding really entitle you to an all-expenses-paid shopping spree at Crate & Barrel?
One of my dearest straight friends actually threatened her future mother-in-law with calling off the wedding if a shower was thrown in her honor. She (admirably) reasoned that at age 27, she’d been living on her own and supporting herself for several years, and didn’t need her cupboards stocked by anyone else. I’m guessing the majority of lesbians are in the same boat — we aren’t getting married until we’ve lived on our own for a while (and probably with a few ex-girlfriends), and we have accumulated most of the things we really need to set up house. Between us, my girlfriend and I presently have nine mixing bowls and seven skillets, so I have to wonder if we’ll be out of line asking for even more cookware via a bridal registry when we tie the knot.
The problem is I really, really want all that stuff. I want new mixing bowls and fancier skillets. I want someone to buy me one of those adorable picnic sets that magically folds up into the blanket when you’re done feasting on wine and cheese in the park. I want to sleep on expensive sheets I didn’t pay for. I could probably even find a use for one of those big crystal bowls that someone would inevitably buy me even though I didn’t ask for it. And call me Bridezilla, but I feel like I kind of deserve it. The same-sex bridal registry is sort of like war reparations in the battle for marriage equality. We had to ante up when all of our straight friends (and cousins and siblings and co-workers and frenemies) got hitched, so shouldn’t they all have to do the same for us?
When the time actually arrives, I’m not sure how I’ll solve the great bridal registry debate raging inside me. Maybe I’ll choose the classy route and insist no one bring gifts. Perhaps I’ll suddenly become altruistic and simply request that wedding guests wishing to give a gift make a donation to a gay rights organization in my name. Or maybe, I will run like a mad woman through a department store zapping everything my heart desires with a scanner gun — and let my friends and family pick up the tab.
What do you think? Are bridal registries fabulous or faux pas?
