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Phew! Yesterday Mr.E and I went to the Sunday Morning Engagament event at Crate and Barrel! It was *so* much fun, but I really felt unprepared and overwhelmed. In terms of research, I didn’t get much farther than posting my All Clad vs. Calphalon debate last week, and I still walked out of the store without putting a single pot or pan on the registry. Being a bonafide shopaholic, I thought this process would be a breeze, but it was challenging. After 2 hours on my feet I literally felt woozy, and Mr. E had to go hunt down some water for me. I should have known to wear more comfortable shoes (I had on high heel boots), especially after Miss Pearl’s great registering tips. Arghh.
I saw this one bride-to-be with all of her wanted items printed out, and she methodically went from section to section happily scanning away. For us, every decision required this painful thought process: Do we like the style/pattern? Does it feel good in our hands? How many should we get? Do we really need this? Luckily for me, Mr.E was a good sport and it was really a “team” process for us… he also made sure I took regular breaks, haha!
One thing we are having a hard time deciding on is dinnerware. Do we really need fine china? Is it practical? Will we use them more than once a year, if even?
At C&B, we decided that we liked their Celadon dishes. Since they are a mid-price set (around $47 - $55 per place setting), we thought we would only register for these and use them as both every day dishes as well as for entertaining. True, I wish that some of the pieces had different but complementary pattern variations to add some visual interest, but oh well.
But after 3 hours at C&B, we went to scope out Macy’s as another possible registry location, and started ooohing and ahhhing over their fine china. Obviously this made us (moreso me) second guess our initial decision of getting only one practical set. But at $140-ish per place setting, I feel like I can’t justify asking people to get us these extravagant and rather impractical gifts. On the other hand, I also realize that if I don’t get these now, then I will never go out and spend $1000+ on fine china for myself.
We especially liked Kate Spade’s June Bug and Ralph Lauren’s Silk Ribbon collections. They made our C&B Celadon set seem so plain and boring.
So, on that note… it’s Vote Time!!
I’m going to the CB event next weekend! We started putting together the list, but now I’m even more motivated to do so.
As for the debate with china/casual ware, this is the way I see it: when I entertain, I like to go all out and although my guests may not have seen my normal everyday china, I have and I like something new and different and a bit more unique for entertaining. Remember also that you want your everyday cheap enough that if you break one, so be it, you can buy another one on open stock without buying a whole new place setting. Also - you’re setting up for a lifetime together. Do you see yourself hosting Thanksgiving or holiday dinners down the road? My sister has fine china that comes out probably 5-6 times a year between holidays, birthdays, and nice dinner parties.
I’m just trying to debate if I should get a china pattern that I really like and have chosen with my fiance, or just go with the set that was my grandmother’s and is now mine. It’s lovely and has sentimental attachement for me, but it’s not “our” style so much. And I don’t get my hands on it for another 10 years or so…
We already have everyday dishes *and* I stand to inherit several sets of fine china (but hopefully not for a long time, of course!), but we still registered for both. Our current “everyday” dishes are vintage, and while I love them they’d be too hard to replace, and I don’t want to have to worry *too* much if one of them breaks. So we’ll pack those away and only take them out once in a while, once we get the everyday stuff. Also, I’ve developed a grand plan for decorating my eventual dining room, so I had to register for my own fine china, to match the dining room. 
Basically, I’m just a nut for dishes!
We ended up registering for both, but even the “fancy” set is somehwat casual for fancy china and was reasonable priced. We registered for the Celadon set at C&B for everyday and for the Pearl Bone China at C&B for the fancy china. Both are reasonably priced and have different looks/uses.
We both have sets of china from our grandparents, so we had no need to register for it. However, I don’t think I would be even if we didn’t already have it. We registered for the Classic Century dishes at C&B. I think that they are very elegant and delicate and could totally be used at a formal dinner. In fact, I look forward to using them for just that! The hardest part of registering for us has been finding glassware that we like. Wine glasses were easy, but not regular drinking glasses or nice glassware that I would use at a formal dinner. I’m totally lost on that one…
we picked out the rl silk ribbon! we registered for it at fortunoffs - even though there isn’t one nearby us, a lot of people shop online and it doesn’t make that much difference to us, so hopefully we may get some!
fortunoff’s always has the macy’s sale price - so while the place setting is 135 or so normally, it’s 99 on sale and macys, and 99 always at fortunoffs. we picked fortunoffs b/c it’s silly for our guests to pay 135 if it’s not on sale when they happen to be shopping.
We registered for those Celdaon plates as our everyday……they are so retro and adorable!
We’re thinking of holding off on the china as my grandmother passed china down to my mom and I really couldn’t imagine another pattern other than that!
I do love the Kate Spade June Bug, that’s where I got the dragonflies idea for our invites/save the dates, etc.!
have you seen that episode of friends where chandler and monica use their fine china for thanksgiving one year even though monica insisted that they only be used when the queen of england comes… and then chandler ends up breaking them all? Hehe your post reminded me of that! But for us, if we were to have company over, i think we’d end up using styrafoam (wow i can’t spell today..) plates just cause we’re not the type to have really formal dinners. so we’re just getting everyday dishes. but i think if you feel like you’ll use the fine china at least a handful of times, then it’s worth putting on your registry. 
I am not at the point of registering yet, but here are my two cents. My Mom had fine china set which she got from my Grandmother. We only used it few times a year ( between holiday, birthday and the such) but I loved loved loved when we did. It felt so much more special. Everything was pretty and matching ( which casual dishes usuallu aren’t since we used them more and they broke)
I think I will either register or put some of the wedding money aside to buy these myself. I really want to have a nice complete set of fine china one day to put on the table for CHristmas etc.
We’re just not the type to entertain using china, and most of the china designs just don’t do anythign for me. Our plan is to have a basic set of stoneware dishes (colorwave by noritake) and then a lot of serving dishes that are more colorful and diverse.
We’re inheriting both my grandmother’s fine china (she’s giving it as our wedding gift) and my mom’s Christmas dishes (ditto), so we really only need everyday dishes. We have a lot of dishes now, but not a whole matching set (and I am that OCD about it). However, we registered for a fairly nice set of everyday dishes, because I wanted them to be oven-safe as well.
Wow, I wish I had some china with sentimental value to inherit… unfortunately, my family is not the china type… which means I should get it, so that I can pass it down to MY kids, right?? haha!! wahhh. I still can’t decide what to do!! But I appreciate all the input… I think this is something I will have to mull over for a while…
Miss Emerald,
We registered for plain white bone china ($100/setting) and we plan on using it every day. The salespeople at William Ashley and some friends swear by it–saying that it is way more durable than earthenware for everyday!So we will be using our fine china everyday. Because it’s plain white we registered for a few accent piece from Kate Spade’s Gwinnet Lane line.
wow, we had almost identical days yesterday! I live in Chicago too and we started off at C&B Engagements and then headed to Macy’s. We had SUCH a hard time with both fine china ane everyday that I still don’t know what we’ll end up with. We definitely will be getting two sets…
Because my fiance has 8 of everything from the Crate & Barrel Staxx dinnerware set, we’re registering for four place settings of that and 12 settings of The Good Stuff (Mikasa Floral Elegance in Platinum) from Boston Store (Younker’s/Carson Pirie Scott — very regional to the Midwest). So it’s nice, b/c it’s not like we have to register for two full sets of dishes. Would I have picked Staxx if we’d started our everyday set from scratch? Probably not, but it’s totally functional and I’m the type who’ll use The Good Stuff fairly often.
I’m option D- No, just everyday dishes, we already have china. I’m a strange girl, and bought myself some china at an antique store when I was 18 or 19, so we just needed everday dishes to replace the hand-me-downs we had been using.
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Mrs. Emerald, Chicago Age and Occupation: 26, Wedding Planner Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Paralegal Engagement Date: October 8, 2006 Wedding Date: September 2007 Blogging Since: November 29, 2006 Venue: Hyatt Lodge, Oak Brook IL About Me: I have been dreaming about my wedding forever, and flipping through bridal magazines since high school, so I am in my element! I am calling our theme "Vintage Inspired French/Asian Fusion." Mr. Emerald is very involved in the planning process, but of course he generally defers to me cuz I have a strong opinion of how I want everything to be :-).
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