~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ with the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter
Today, I'm doing the double link-up thing.
Today, I'm doing the double link-up thing.
Cari's Theme for this Thursday is Dishes. I love the idea of mismatched dishes but am just OCD enough not to be able to live with it. The closest I have come is having a mismatched (but still matched) combination of coffee mugs and tea mugs. Guess which is which. :)
{pretty}
Cari's post today also made me think about our experience with wedding china. That story goes something like this…
We were told we had to register for fine china because EVERYBODY registers for fine china. "It's what a lot of people like to give as a wedding gift," we were told. Is that true? I don't know. We were young and stupid. So, we did register for a set of very pretty fine china just like the one pictured above. It was a fairly pricey Ralph Lauren pattern, not the most expensive, but definitely not what I'd consider an everyday china. And we did receive a few pieces as gifts. Some we were given in reality and some we were given in theory… promised by the store for later delivery. I think it was some time after our first anniversary and way too many frustrated phone calls to count that we took all of the pieces we had in hand and all of those little promise cards we'd saved back to the store and asked for refunds on everything. They obliged. I don't mind waiting, but a full year? Um…no.
{happy}
The one good thing that came out of that year of waiting for our pretty dishes to arrive was that by the time we did finally return them, we had come to our senses a bit, discovered that The Professor was on his way and realized that we really had no good use for expensive fine china no matter what we were told. We still wanted a set of nice china, more formal than our everyday dishes, but we'd come to the decision that we didn't want to shed red-hot hysterical tears if a dish was accidentally broken or smashed by a little person (or a clumsy big person). So, we took our refund from the department store for the few fine china pieces we were gifted and purchased an almost complete set of {affiliate link} this pattern instead. Simple, reasonable, and we still have all the pieces!
{funny}
Finding out that one of your best online friends has the exact same china pattern! (The reasonable one, not the impossible to actually deliver Ralph Lauren ones.) Hah! Jessica, I am convinced that we were supposed to be sisters!
{real}
A little slice of real life...
A little slice of real life...
There is no fancy fine china in the world that could mean more to me than this.
People told us the same thing, but instead we did just some nice plain dishes, no fine china. Of course we no longer have them, lol, but I did inherit my parents china from the earl 60s!
ReplyDeleteAnd forgive me, but I nominated you for an award over at the blog!
Oh, the fine china! We registered for it and it wasn't until we had been married for 12 years that we finally had all 12 place settings of it. Granted, we do use it for holidays, but probably not enough to justify the cost. I also had to have casual china and everyday dishes. Those two sets have seen the most use. The china you have now looks very similar to the Lenox pattern we have. Very pretty on display and it goes with everything.
ReplyDeleteStudies show that food looks most appetizing on white plates, so you have chosen wisely. My mother has the same china too! A bazillion place settings of it!
ReplyDeleteOh, sleeping toddlers-- the best.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know anything about registering for wedding things, but my sister (my maid of honor) and I went one weekend to some high end dept. store in a mall and saw a sign for registering. We just went ahead without a clue and picked things out. I don't even think prices were listed. I just picked what I liked. I turns out I picked some very expensive items and the only registered things I received were ONE plate (white with a blue and gold design on the rim) and two gold-rimmed wine glasses. We still have the lone plate. Being clumsy, I broke one of the delicate wine glasses pretty quickly, so I stored the other in the back of the cabinet and rarely used it. I took it out this Christmas to use and, wouldn't you know it, my 7yo broke it clearing off the table (he was very tearful over it). My tastes have become much simpler and more practical and I would advise my daughters to choose differently than I did 27 years ago. My nice china I have now is actually an old red on white pattern I collect from antique and thrift stores. When relatives and friends see it while shopping they often pick it up for me. Much cheaper than my original "special dishes" choice.
ReplyDeleteMy MIL to be really wanted to buy us some china for our wedding, and kept nagging us to register for it, but I really didn't want china. My husband's solution? Register for it and return what we get. After talking with him about it for a while, we decided to not register for something we'd plan to return, and he would tell his mom politely that we didn't actually want china and weren't going to register for it. I think it was actually harder for him to do that then it would have been for him to get and return the china, but not for me! :) She took it very well and got us something else instead. And what were we going to tell her when she came to our house and we didn't actually have the china she'd gotten us?!? Very amusing first look at my husband's non-confrontational approach to his family, but he's gotten far more outspoken over the years.
ReplyDeleteI love your china story and the china you actually have means so much more now because of it.
ReplyDeleteLove those pictures of that sweet little cupcake....oh, she's a honey!
NO WAY!! Not only do we have the same set of mugs, but we do the same thing with the coffee and tea! The scalloped edged mugs are for tea, right?! And the mugs with the raised bumps are the coffee mugs. :)
ReplyDeleteSisters from different misters. haha ;)
Oh, and could Cupcake be any cuter in her multi-colored tutu?! Precious.
ReplyDelete