Bridal shower this Sunday... not many registry gifts purchased?

My experience has been people tend to purchase less from registries overall. I know I rarely use them.

Personally i have always just bought gift cards to the stores they were registered at, and put it in the card. the ONE time i took the time to figure out the crazy registry log in stuff all the things i could afford for them were already bought, and they actually had gift cards on the list, so i bought them the gift cards on their registry and it had them sent to the bride's house.

So I'm awful and wait till the very last minute to buy gifts for showers. And your guests may be the same way!

A lot of my stuff I got via mail because some weren't able to make it. My mom and my great aunt didn't mark their gifts as purchased on my registry either. So I had quite a few from my mom, like small things like an ice cream scooper and things. Also received some things that weren't on my registry which was very nice too.

I have never once used a registry as a guest. I always do a gift card or cash and write something nice in their card.

Only one person gave us a gift not on our registry. My husband's aunts gifted us a dining set that they split the cost on since it was a couple hundred dollar gift. My mom and one of my friends gave us the same gift. My mom felt bad since we didn't need two so she bought us a different item. A few gave us cash/gift cards.

In all honesty (and I truly mean this in a kind way), you will enjoy the whole wedding planning/anticipation experience much more if you kind of pretend you aren't getting any gifts at all. That way, you have no expectations and anything do you do get will just be a nice surprise.

People will of course bring/give you gifts, but worrying about gifts, keeping an eye on your registry, wondering who will give what and how much, etc., will only lead to more anxiety and potentially hurt feelings.

I guess I'm a minority based on most of these responses, but almost our entire registry was purchased, and probably 75% of it was weeks before our first shower.

That being said, I am a procrastinator when it comes to purchasing wedding/shower/birthday gifts. So maybe your friends are like me and will purchase last minute or just get you a gift card to the stores you registered at.

While we used a universal gift registry, we had tons of items on there from Crate and Barrel and I received Crate and Barrel gift cards from 4 separate people at my shower! A number of shower guests also purchased gifts together (so even though it may have appeared on the actual registry that one person had bought it, whereas it was actually two people together). A few went off of the registry, but the majority stuck to it. I don't think you have anything to be worried about.