Registry Do's and Don'ts

Anybody else read Young House Love?  If you do, I'm sure you caught their post last week about the items they're glad they registered for, wish they hadn't, etc. Since we just hit our five-year mark as well, I thought it may be fun to try to take a look around our house and see if I could come up with my own version of that list.
Before we begin, though, my first bit of registry advice would be to make sure people know to get you stuff off your registry...somehow, someway!  I don't know if it was our guests or us or what, but we had a lot of people choose to buy us random keepsake kind of things like crystal bowls, picture frames, unique platters, etc. instead of items we had registered for.  Not to sound ungrateful, but it kind of sucked!  Not only were a lot of them not in our taste at all, but they also couldn't be returned or anything because we didn't even know where they came from.  5 years later, we still have most of them, but honestly, they just kind of take up space...it would have been much nicer to get some of the things we really wanted/needed.
Now that that's out of the way, let's first look at the registry successes, the things we got and still use and LOVE:

• first and foremost, our bar...from my very generous aunt and uncle...not only is it functional, it is also pretty and is over all an awesome piece of furniture to own

• Rachael Ray knife set: it has 2 basic, hardcore kitchen knives that we use for prepping just about anything in the kitchen
• lamps: we originally registered for them for our living room, but have moved them to the bedroom where they fit in quite nicely
• crock pot
• KitchenAid mixer (although we actually got it for the Christmas after our wedding)
• nice wood cutting board 
• Crate and Barrel wine glasses
• Crate and Barrel drinking glasses
• coffee mugs (although we probably only needed 2-3 and we got six of them!)
• spice rack, although honestly I'm not a huge fan of the rack, but the amount of spices in that thing is unreal...most haven't even needed to be refilled in the five years!  Plus, there's lots of random spices in there that I wouldn't have had on hand when I needed them
• Bakeware set
• Mixing bowls
• Stainless Steel cookware set (although I think it's time for an upgrade now!)
• our trash can...the only item on our entire registry that Josh was insistent on, I personally thought the $180 price tag on it was ridiculous but one of my friends wanted to make his dreams come true and bought it for him us...5 years later, it's probably our most used registry item if that counts for anything
• duvet
• duvet cover and sheet set...we actually replaced these when we moved into our house a couple of years ago, but I think it's pretty natural to shake those things up every few years or so, so I consider it a success because they served us well for those first few years
• towels...same as the duvet and sheet set

Failures, things we registered for and just shouldn't have:

• Our plates...by far my most disappointing registry item...I picked out these GORGEOUS Kate Spade plates that were listed as "everyday." My overly generous sister bought us the whole set...dinner plates, bowls, salad plates...and I LOVED them.  After about a week of using them, though, we started seeing crazy scratch marks all over them...and they just kept getting worse.  I have honestly never been so upset to have to return something in my life, but they were just getting destroyed and for that amount of money, it just didn't make sense.
• Martini and margarita glasses: I fell for the registry checklist mistake and picked out all the glasses.  Well, five years later, we've never used either...even when we did serve margaritas (I don't think we've ever served actual martinis!).
• Pizza stone
• Wok

Failures, things we SHOULD have registered for and didn't

• Basic white plates (see above about the plates we did actually pick)...we eventually made these our plates and I'm very happy with the choice...very versatile
• a set of silverware...we had hand-me-downs and thought they were good enough, which they were for a couple of years until I broke down and replaced them
• a vacuum, again we had a hand-me-down and actually still do (just a different one)...vacuums are expensive and while we need to take the plunge, that's just not something you want to buy...should have just registered for

The debate is still out on:

• our china...by far the most controversial thing on our registry (at least in our house!), and five years later, I still can't quite decide if it was worth it.  I'm definitely glad we have it when we go to use it (which is pretty much Thanksgiving right now), but at the same time, it was a lot of money that could have been used for other things, so I just don't know.  Hopefully, as the years go by, we'll use it more and more, and it will gain sentimental value and will totally be a success!