Schwag

Bloomingdales gave us Schwag.

What is Schwag you ask? There is a great definition of "Schwag" on this page:
http://www.promosapien.ca/Content/What%20Is%20Schwag.asp

At the top of the page it reads, "Promosapien - promotional products for the human race." Read the history of schwag on that page. It's very funny.

If you've ever been to a trade show, you know about schwag. I used to attend SIGGRAPH trade shows, and my house is still full of the outdated schwag from that endeavor.

A few weeks ago the fiance and I headed downtown with the intention of seeing a movie. But the Chinese New Year parade prevented us from reaching the movie theater. Since we were stuck in the South of Market area we dropped in on Bloomingdales, not because we had an appointment to register, just because we were there. I actually had not yet been to the new Bloomingdales. It's amazing. The whole shopping center is amazing. They have curved escalators. Apparently the curved escalators are an engineering feat.

I was secretly excited that we ended up at Bloomingdales that Saturday evening. It was an unanticapted chance to do one more wedding preparation task. I now get very excited when I accomplish wedding preparation tasks.

Because my fiance was married once before, he new all about fine china, silver, and stemware. I have to admit that I may have only heard the term "stemware" once before in my life. In a prior conversation with my mother she said, "You don't want to register for china! It'll just sit in your cupboards and you'll have to lug it around with you whenever you move. We haven't used the silver that we got at our wedding once (and that was like almost 50 years ago....)." On the topic of china my fiance said, "Well, it's a chance to get something nice." And then in a separate conversation he said, "You're the woman of the house. You should decide what you'd like to have for serving guests." I was touched. Sometimes he's so traditional. And I actually find it to be very endearing and cute. Now if only I could convince him that The Woman of the House shouldn't have to work.... nah, that'll never happen. Today the Woman of the House serves formal meals on fine china and then gets on a plane the next day for a business meeting in New York.

Anyway, I digress. Bloomingdales gave us Schwag. We had just enough time in the store to take a quick look at the housewares, peak at the silver pattern that my parents have, have my fiance point out a stemware pattern that he'd registered for the last time around (oh the joys of being a second wife), and to realize that I was going to have to make yet even more choices (see my last blog entry and comments on making choices). Oh yes, and we met very briefly with a "bridal consultant." Her name was Lindsay and she gave me a cute little cosmetics-sized shopping back with a beautiful yellow ribbon for handles. Inside the shopping bag was: her business card, a small spiral bound Registry Guide with lists of suggested items to register for next to neat little check boxes, a registration form, and a twelve inch by twelve inch fancy photo album. What? A photo album? Yes. It is large, cloth covered, has a window in the front to insert a picture, binder rings that open and close, and 30 photo insert pages. At first I was touched. Then I looked at what came before the 30 photo pages: about 50 pages of full color ads for everything from mattresses to the stationary department at Bloomingdales. Schwag. The fiance actually commented on The Schwag, "Wow, it must of cost them at least $20 per item to produce these..." Well, yeah. If you figure that the wedding guests probably spend upwards of three thousand dollars at any one store, I guess Bloomingdales should give us gifts. It's all so commercial. I now feel like I have a billboard sitting on my dining room table. My instinct is to throw out the 50 pages of ads... but then there are some useful hints in those pages like how to choose china... do I care? The Schwag Package is designed to help you make choices, and to cooerce you into spending even more money in the store while doing so. Maybe it will come in handy when we are actually registering. I see here that I should be registering for a Kitchen Aid electric mixer even though I've never baked a cake from scratch in my life.

Apparently in the last 5 or so years, the wedding industry has balooned (at least the commercialism and financial side of it). If I talk to anyone who got married more than 5 years ago, their photographer cost about $2,000. If you search in the bay area for a photographer with a track record and decent reputation today, their minimum fee is $6,000. What is that, a 300% increase in 5 years? It does seem to follow the appreciation rates of bay area housing. If you bought a house in San Francisco in 2002 for $400k it's now worth $650k. Actually, I think the photographers are doing better than the housing.

The cute little yellow Bloomingdale's Schwag Bag sort of lives on top of the buffet (at least until we are done registering). And whenever I see it sitting there I think, "Schwag. They gave us Schwag." I don't now whether to feel burdened or flattered.

Now that I think about it, Bloomingdales should give us some Waterford Crystal, not Schwag. Like frequent flyer miles. You should get 20 purchase points towards "free stuff" for every gift that is bought from your registry. So at the end when you are missing those 3 coffee cups and 5 desert plates that were not purchased, Bloomingdales just gives it to you for free out of your "frequent buyer" account miles, I mean points. Now that would make me want to register at Bloomingdales.