I know you all have been wondering if there was more to our registries than the Macy's - Bed, Bath, and Beyond spree a week ago. Okay, in case you are even remotely curious, read on. Or, if you are ready to hear my wisdom about registries, also read on.

We got home after the exciting spree mentioned above, and quickly made the Macy's registry invisible to the outside word - smart decision since we had duplicate items on there and were afraid someone will discover our registry and start buying us mismatched flatware. The biggest issue with the Macy's registry, we soon discovered, was that the things we put on it fell into the following categories:

1. Discontinued, a.k.a. who-knows-how-many-towels-that-you-liked-will-be-available-for-your-guests-to-buy-in-a-month-or-two
2. Not available online
3. 50% more expensive than in places like Amazon or Bed, Bath, and Beyond
4. "This item has really bad reviews", a.k.a. do-you-really-want-your-rice-cooker-to-die-on-you-in-the-middle-of-romantic-meal-preparation?
5. Only some items from a manufacturer/collection were carried. We were hoping to register for one additional All-Clad pot, but couldn't find it at the store. Guess what - it wasn't there online either!
6. Two items that were ok, but considering how everything else fell into groups 1 through 5, was it worth it?

You should not be surprised therefore, that the night we got back from our first registry trip we decided to ditch Macy's registry. And ditch Macy's registry we did, right after I got my free lip gloss from Clinique :).

This past weekend we went to explore Williams-Sonoma, which was the store where we decided to register instead of Macy's. While I personally think that Williams-Sonoma is rather expensive, you can't deny that it's a beautiful store. On a rainy Saturday it looked so warm and cozy and inviting... We couldn't resist and stepped right into the warm and shiny cook's paradise. You have to give Williams-Sonoma credit - we had the most pleasant experience registering there. The staff was polite and very helpful. They were there when we needed them and were able to provide extensive advice when we asked for it. We filled out the application form for the registry at the store and were pleasantly surprised that we could choose from a variety of the "visibility settings" for our registry online - including the option to set it to "invisible" for now or an option to have it password-protected for all viewers.

Now we have 3 registries: Amazon, Williams-Sonoma and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Here are a few observations in several categories:

• Registry's flexibility in terms of visibility to others:

Best: Williams-Sonoma  - allows many different options for accessing the registry online

Worst: Bed, Bath, and Beyond  and Amazon- cannot make the registry invisible (at least we haven't found a way how to)

Adequate:Macy's - has an option to make the registry invisible

• Presence of low-cost well-rated items we're interested in:

Best:Bed, Bath, and Beyond - has a lot of small items that we are interested in, like OXO grips things with good ergonomics

• Flexibility:

Best:Amazon - can add random items to the registry from places other than the Amazon store

• Coolness:

Best:Williams-Sonoma - has really cool [All Clad d5 Stainless Steel pots. 5 layers of metal! 2 layers of aluminum!][] They are exclusive to Williams-Sonoma, so I guess we couldn't just register for those on Amazon. I hope someone will give us these. :)

As a bonus, here is a picture of me with a scanner, looking really determined:

[caption id="attachment_71" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="I am going to scan this... I am!"][][][/caption]

[All Clad d5 Stainless Steel pots. 5 layers of metal! 2 layers of aluminum!]: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/shop/cookware/cookware-all-clad/ckwallssd/?cm_type=lnav []: http://ksusha.org/wp-uploads/2010/06/ksu_with_scanner.jpg