The Registry Debate: To China, or Not to China?

It's one of those classic "registry items." Fine china. Everyone talks about how you must register for it. However, most people I know are skipping the fine china phase, and going for goodies such as TVs and video games. Definitely more likely to get used, right?

Sean and I both grew up in households where our families' china was used regularly. I've been eating off Waterford since I was four. Mary busts out her china every day - they're her "standard" plates. Sean's family only uses china on holidays, but since his parents' house is the biggest, we often end up eating there. And wine glasses? Well those are used on a regular basis.


On one hand, if we chose china, we would have to move and store it in an apartment for the next few years, and rarely use it. On the other hand, we'll never buy it for ourselves and we will want it in the future. This is the one time that people are going to be willing to buy us something so expensive, and well, frivolous.

We went for china. We almost didn't, because we couldn't pick out a pattern we both liked. I wanted something plain and minimalistic, whereas Sean wanted fancy stuff with intricacies. I didn't want lace and flourishes - Sean did. We decided to veto china at Macy's, but as we thought about it, we decided to browse online. After nearly an hour of searching and shooting down patterns - we found her. The perfect china pattern. It fits us, and is both modern and classic. Meet Lauren, by Ralph Lauren.

(The Dinner Plate)

(The "teacups")

(The Saucers)

We LOVE the detailing on the china - it looks like the band of a watch. The saucers are all clock faces (um, awesome?!), and actually sold us on the set. It's modern, but classy and funky at the same time. We wouldn't have to use the saucers, and we love the teacups because they're more like coffee mugs, which is much more us. We registered for 12 place settings, though we 'd be happy with just 8. We'll be getting salad plates as well, which are smaller versions of the dinner plates. 

As far as wine glasses go, this is what we chose: 

(Caelyn by Waterford)

They're whimsical, clean, and modern, at least in comparison to the other wine glasses available. 

The only thing we haven't chosen yet? Flatware. The Macy's in CoMo didn't have a good selection (nor do they carry furniture). I didn't realize the Macy's in our hometown was so large. We want to buy flatware in large sets also, so hopefully we'll get a chance to register for that in the next few weeks!