Yes, this. To say nothing of the modern notion of registering for gifts; i.e., telling people what to buy them. The previous comments about underemployment and student debt underscore the harsh fact that, if anything, such people need to delay marriage. Maybe it's time to bring back the notion of the "hope chest"...for everybody.
I grew up at the tail end of the era when most young women had such a chest in the "hope" of using the contents therein during her marriage. I myself never had such a chest ("there's no hope for this one!"), but I dang sure had a cheap set of dishes, flatware, pots and pans,sheets and towels, etc. etc. before I moved on my own. And so did most of my friends.
A different perspective.
In my silly 20s I hated the registry. And i went against it, for each wedding, darnit. Some gifts were decent (a BBQ set for a couple that likes to BBQ...never thinking they might already have utensils they LIKED). Others were a good idea, but when the couple divorced, those hand-painted, names-written-on-the-bottom, tea cups were donated.
Basically it resulted in me having wasted a bit of money that I didn't have, on gifts that probably weren't as appreciated as others might have been.
All those friends married in their early 20s, all had moms to answer the "what do they need?" questions, as tradition has dictated forever.
I met DH in October before I turned 31, and my mom (who disliked weddings) had died in March. So when we got engaged, it were on our own. My dad offered to pay, but had no interest in giving input. His mom despised me and didn't want it to happen (she was just about to send him to her relatives in Korea to find a nice Korean girl to marry...I'm Irish-descent...NOT what she wanted in a daughter in law, even though she herself married a white guy and had kids with him), so refused to help even one little bit. She never even responded to my MOH's shower invitation for me, which hurt me tremendously.
No nice person wants to bother the bride, so my family and friends were at a loss to figure out what we might need. And EVERY SINGLE ONE of my friends INSISTED that I had to create a registry. They were appalled that I refused to put the registry cards into the shower invite. They said that it's so convenient for people to KNOW what people want, and to know where to get it. I did create a registry, because it was demanded of me.
But I cherish the things that came solely from peoples' hearts, too! It didn't bother me a bit to get things that people simply wanted us to have, and didn't need to know what we wanted.
HOpe chest...I really do not know when you grew up, because my mom ('44) and aunt ('42) didn't have those. And still I wonder how a new spouse feels, coming into a situation where the bride is saying "your taste doesn't matter, I've got this covered". That's definitely not my style of happiness.
I hate registries!!! And, even more, I hate hearing "Oh!! My towels!!!" when the bride opens a gift. As though these people who took time and money from their day to shower you with gifts were nothing but a gift delivery service.
Then don't buy from them.
And maybe hear it in a different way. A bride saying "oh, my towels", is EXCITED. Something she has specifically chosen; gone and spent time to pick out...has been purchased for her. She LONGS for those towels, to use them every day! To think of the gift-giver every time she sees them. She has chosen them and then has waited probably months to see any of them, and she is over-the-moon to see them again in person. Isn't that marvelous?
It's how I felt about our silverware. Alas, it discontinued just before our wedding, so two servings worth is all we were given, and all we could get. But I know exactly who got them for us, and every time I touch those settings I think of her. And I probably said "oh look, our silverware!" when I saw them. But I didn't mean anything awful by it; I was just so ecstatic to see them, and to know someone loved us enough to get them for us.
I now feel ashamed of my anti-registry time. Especially because I was so bad at it. I would never have thought of a cauliflower-themed soup tureen. And yet one of my mom's old friends did, gave me a Williams Sonoma soup cookbook along with it (sadly, most of the soups aren't vegetarian, and I'm magnificently horrid at making soups, even from a recipe...I have exactly two that I can do from the Moosewood cookbook, but the rest I've tried are awful), and it was a great and memorable present. I never got anything that great for someone else, and I regret all the gifts I didn't buy from registries, because I wouldn't have wasted my money. (I never once saw that BBQ set I bought...)
