Registries

When attending a shower for a friend, do you generally shop on or off the registry?

I ask because I am a registry person, especially so for babies (in contrast with bridal showers, where I will occasionally go off-registry). My feeling is that the person best knows what they need when it comes to baby items, and I want to be sure they have those things. And I'll go off registry occasionally with a bridal shower because, unless you're just graduating from college, one or both of you probably has pots and pans and dishes and utensils, and you can probably get by a little longer without a gravy boat to match your china pattern, but, when it comes to a baby shower, you probably don't have a spare infant seat. And they won't let you leave the hospital without one. I will sometimes also get a cute clothing item or a blankie or a toy or a book, but I tend to have my main gift(s) be from the baby registry.

This is on my mind because our friends who are expecting twins in June have their shower coming up this weekend. They don't have a ton of cash lying around and are expecting to have two additional people join their household in a few months, so they need a lot of stuff. They kept their registry fairly minimalist in order to ensure people gave them the things they really needed -- carseats, stroller, monitor, etc. I was worried there wouldn't be enough on it, that it would be cleaned out by a week or two before the shower.

Yet, the shower is this weekend, but the vast majority of registry items remain unpurchased. The vast majority. Including basics (at a range of prices) like the baby monitor, crib sheets, changing pad, bathtub, hooded towels, sleep sacks. (Thankfully, the carseats and stroller have been purchased, as have some less-necessary/easy-to-buy-used items (like an exersaucer) that they can exchange if needed.) When BRU was having its big sale over Presidents Day weekend, I even sent an email out to the email list that the shower hostess had used to send a save the date to let them know about the sale and offer to share some coupons I had, but mainly I sent it to remind people that they are registered there. But only five more items have been purchased in the intervening two weeks.

For some reason, this is really bothering me. I am hoping that a lot of their friends/family are real last minute shoppers who will do their shopping Saturday morning in the hours before the shower, or that some of their relatives will give them cash, but I'm not holding my breath. Do other people not shop off registries? Am I the weird one here?