• Choose a retailer with a well-established (preferably computerized) wedding registry that tracks gifts purchased for you. Registries with web access are an added plus, since guests who don’t live near the actual store can shop it on the Net.
• Select gifts in a wide price range so that your guests will have spending options.
• Consider your entire home, room by room, when choosing gifts for your registry, and include items for the outdoors, too, if you’ll have yard work to do.
• Base your registry choices on your hobbies and pastimes (don’t forget your fiancé’s input!) if your home is already outfitted with traditional registry items such as tableware, cookware, and bed and bath linens. Stock a wine cellar, upgrade your sports equipment, music or video equipment, or build a home library ... follow your hearts’ desires.

Don’t. . .

• Rush out and buy the first formal tableware patterns you see. Take time to analyze your lifestyle needs and personal tastes. Fine tableware is costly because it is made to last a lifetime and beyond. Save your trendy impulses for casual, everyday tableware.
• Be shy about creating a comprehensive registry list because you think you’ll look greedy. Your guests will appreciate knowing what you’d like; with your list, they can make confident choices.
• Advertise your bridal registry on your invitation (your wedding shower hostess may note it on her invitation to guests). This is not only presumptuous, but terribly tacky as well. Word-of-mouth is your best strategy, but don’t offer information, unless you are asked. Let your family speak on your behalf for registry specifics.
• Put off writing thank-you notes for gifts received. Pen your thank-you’s immediately for gifts received before the wedding. After you’re married you have three months to complete writing them