Since 1934, Scully & Scully has provided New York and cities around the world with luxurious home décor, jewelry, tabletop accessories, and furnishings all served with an important theme of family tradition. For our brides, we sat down with Ms. Rachel Sgro and Mr. Lee Riedlinger, registry manager and store manager, respectively, at Scully & Scully’s store on Park Ave here in New York, and they answered all of our questions about the brand and its registry.
Q: What is unique about your company and your service as opposed to competitors? Why would someone shop here?
LR: We do have the legacy of 81 years and Mr. Scully’s version and all of that. Also we’re a niche market. So much is modern now and contemporary in New York. There are not many stores like us left so there’s definitely that, but also, it’s word of mouth. People know if they want certain things, they go to Scully & Scully and they always have and they always do. We’re kind of a Herend mecca, if you will, outside of Herend, Hungary. People walk in and their jaws drop when you see—we have a whole room called the Herend room, with the china patterns and the figurines, and all that… If that’s what you want, this is where you come to get it.
Q: As far as registries, what’s the process for brides-to-be? When do you suggest they start registering?
RG: We definitely suggest they start registering before they send out their save the dates, just because the moment those go out, even if people aren’t going to be giving them a gift yet, at that point they’re starting to look to see what options they have when they do decide to get a gift for them. And then, we start it out with an appointment where we work with the bride and groom for usually about two hours and walk them through the entire process, from picking out their china, crystal, and flatware to picking out giftware and home furnishings, sort of introducing them to the store to hopefully build their home with.
Q: Is there a budget cap on registries? Do the bride and groom need to be aware of that?
RG: It’s so personal. Some brides and grooms do come in being very conscious of the prices they’re putting on registries and that’s more to do with the guests that they’re inviting and the number of guests they have and you know, the sort of standards set by their family before them, but I have a lot who really have no boundaries and so they’ll create a humungous registry and create all kinds of different prices and it’s really better for the guests because that way, you’re going to have a guest who does want to treat you to something very special, very expensive, very unique that’s going to make you remember them, but then you also have, you know, the regular guests. It’s just a friend or a friend of a parent or something, who wants to go ahead and buy sort of whatever may be the standard wedding gift, that doesn’t necessarily want to go to that high price.
Q: I was reading online about the “Hold All Gifts” option. Could you explain that further?
RG: So we call it “Hold All Gifts,” but we’re not actually ordering any items from manufacturers when the guests place an order for a registry. We’re just taking the monetary amount of the item and the shipping and the tax and banking it in an account here and they can spend that credit later and the credit never expires, but that credit can go towards anything we sell here at the store, anything we buy through our manufacturers, and it can also go toward our interior design services as well.
Q: What would you say is your most popular item and what should a bride and groom definitely put on their list?
RG: I mean, there’s no “definitely should put on your list.” Everybody has their own needs. As far as our most popular item, we’re definitely known for our china collection. We have, I’m told, one of the largest collections people see in the city, in New York, sometimes even in a more vast area than that so a lot of our couples tend to come to us for our fine china first and then for the other items secondary.
Q: If their wedding is—say—in California, how easy is it for the guests to purchase and then ship?
RG: The guests can buy online, they can buy over the phone, or they can come to the store. So it’s just as easy as shopping online anywhere else. As far as shipping, because we don’t actually ship the gifts, it makes things a little bit easier. So since it’s just a credit, most couples wait until after the wedding and they come back to us after the wedding and spend and look at how much credit they’ve gotten from all of their gifts and then just place one large order with that credit. And with that being so, they just get one large shipment sent.
Q: Have you gotten a good sense of your demographic? Are you trying to appeal to the younger brides or the grandmothers of the young brides?
RG: It almost astounds me sometimes how all over the place it is. Sometimes it’s the parents saying, “you really need to come in here,” and then in coming in and seeing the store, then the couples start to get interested in what we have. We have a lot of couples that know each other and we even set up tables upstairs, where their names and their wedding dates are set up and a lot of couples come in and that was their roommate and that’s their cousin so sometimes they’re inspiring each other to sort of come this way. We’re also reaching out to older couples, we’re reaching out to same sex couples. It’s just more widespread than I even imagined it would be… When people are getting married, everybody wants a registry and we’re just super excited to be able to provide that service for anyone.
Q: Are there any other things about registries or Scully & Scully that brides or just plain old customers should know before coming in?
RG: I would definitely say for one, try to be considerate of your guests. Don’t put a bunch of $10,000 gifts on there when you have a bunch of friends who just got out of college and they have debts to pay. Something to think about is guests will not only want to get something within their price range, but also—it seems strange—but also to get something that appeals to them. So since a registry really is just a wish list, I always suggest to my couples to put on everything that they want and not really limit themselves because all you’re doing then is offering more and more options for your guests to choose from; so maybe they don’t like the china that you chose, but they really love your crystal so they’re going to go in that direction. The last thing would be, I would never, personally, put anything on my registry that one, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take home because you never know who’s going to get it for you, it might be from grandma or something and she’s going to come to the house and that could’ve been something that you were just like, “oh, let’s throw that piece on there, it’ll be funny,” and the next thing you know, you’ve got 20 years of that funny piece sitting in your house in case grandma comes by. But also, never put anything on that isn’t you. In the end, the people you’re inviting to your wedding are your close friends and your close family and they can tell when they look at the registry. Register for things that you’re going to want, that you’re going to use, that you’re going to need that represent you guys.
