Category: Wedding Registries and Gifts

As a wedding guest for four weddings this year, I can tell you two things that strike fear into the heart of the invitee. The first is: what to wear? (What the heck is “Backyard Formal,” I ask you?) The other is: what to give? While wearing the wrong thing says you had a closet crisis, giving the wrong thing says something about your relationship with the bride and groom.

My sister Sandra is getting married in October, and a few months ago she and her groom-to-be,Tyler, went to register. Once her mission was accomplished, I asked her if she would share some advice for anyone getting ready to do the same. Here are her tips:

Brides often forget to add a few essential items with smaller price tags to their registry lists, but including these items is a courtesy to the guests who have already contributed a lot to your wedding (hello maids of honor and in-laws!), or younger family members who don’t want to add her name to her parents’ gift. I was reminded of this when I made my semi-routine visit to Williams-Sonoma a few weeks ago.

Lucky, Bon Appetit, and O At Home are just some of the publications that have sung praise for Rosanna Inc. It’s easy to see why.

In your pre-wedding world, you probably already have the dishes, the towels, and the ubiquitous crock pot that grace most wedding registries.So what do you register for if your cupboards already runneth over? You could succumb to that borderline tacky (okay, really tacky) trend of asking guests to pay for your honeymoon or even help fund your wedding. Or you could help make the world a better place by registering for your wedding at ChangingThePresent.org.

Every Valentine’s day, my husband Jaya brings me truffles from The Candy House of Davis, a wonderful chocolatier in Davis, CA. Each box comes with a card, picturing each of the 30 different kinds of truffles they make by hand. By comparing the way the truffle looks to the picture, you can find out what flavor ganache is inside. Whether it be Irish Creame, Decadence, Grand Marnier or White Russian, each one is so beautiful I almost want to save them… but of course, I never do. Each one I taste is more delicious than the one before.

Thank goodness I discovered Dagoba. Fair Trade, Organic and award-winning, Dagoba’s unique “chocolate alchemy” combines flavors in innovative, tantalizing ways. Dagoba chocolate tastes genuine—that is, biting into a small piece, the first taste is chocolate, rather than sugar. Its authentic musky flavor sings of forests and unspoiled wilderness, invariably lifting my spirits. I’ve come to prefer my chocolate dark & spicy, and Dagoba’s Xocolatl, accented with cocoa nibs and chile peppers, satisfies my cravings. My husband isn’t as adventurous and fancies less intense varietals, such as New Moon, the best of bittersweet.

For wedding favors, I love Vosges’ adorable takeout containers which can include truffles like the Black Pearl (ginger + wasabi + dark chocolate + black sesame seeds). Their two-piece truffle boxes can be customized with your names or message and your choice of ribbon colors. And, you can feel good about Vosges’ green commitment.

Unlike my colleagues Lisa and Meredith, I didn’t even think about what chocolate my significant other would be. Instead, I grilled my poor boyfriend on what kind of chocolate he thinks I’d be. After vetoing every type of chocolate he came up with (“What? Really? Where the hell did you get that idea?”), the answer dawned on me while I was restocking on shampoo at the drugstore. An M&M! Or is it an M?