Maid of honor duties start

My duties as maid of honor started today. My cousin, who is engaged to get married next May, asked me to be her maid of honor a week after her finace popped the question on Valentine's Day. She asked me because she figured I wouldn't try to plan my own dream wedding instead of what she wanted, like some of her friends might.

And she's right, mostly because I don't have a dream wedding since I've never put much thought into that kind of thing.

So far, my work as maid of honor has been easy. I got some wedding planning books and passed those on to my cousin. And I scheduled cake tastings twice at a local bakery that advertises hosting free cake tastings one Saturday a month - each time it was canceled because the cake decorator was "too busy."

So this week when my cousin called up and asked if I wanted to help her set up her bridal registry, I said sure, thinking that I might feel like we had accomplished something on a very long to-do list. I keep thinking of the wedding as a year away, but the countdown is actually now down to nine months.

Our plan for the day including hitting Macy's, Bed Bath and Beyond, and either Target or Wal-mart to give guests three different price points from which to choose. We actually didn't make it to the mall until after noon, by the time we included gab time with my mom, a stop at Starbucks on the way, and a stop at the Macy's benefit makeup counter - which at Valley Fair Mall is actually on the opposite side of the mall from the Macy's home store.

Now registering for a wedding seems like it would be simple. Just take the scanner, and point and shoot at everything you could possibly want. But as it turns out, it is a lot more time-consuming than we had both anticipated. There was a lot of browsing through two stories of housewares and bedding. And my cousin was hestitant to put on any items that were too high priced. In the end the highest-priced item was an artisan kitchen aid mixer in almond cream. Other items included a panini maker, a rice cooker, a vegetable steamer, bath towels and plenty of kitchen accessories.

I've told my cousin that any of her kitchen appliances she gets and doesn't use within the first six months after her wedding become mine by default. I also tried to persuade her to put a $129 ice cream maker on the list for me, but she said no.

After two hours of wandering the store - and avoiding the china and crystal sections of the store where everything was super pricey - we had more than two dozen items on the list. We headed to P.F. Chang's for a late afternoon lunch and decided to call it a day. Bed, bath and beyond, and Target or Wal-mart will have to wait for another day.