I regret our wedding china

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wedding china is a vestigial aspect of a lost culture (that in my opinion, should stay lost).

Sell it if you can. Donate it if you can't. If you are anything like me, there just isn't room in the kitchen for something that rarely if ever gets used.

Could you expand on this? Interested to hear and understand.

[Anonymous]

Keep two place settings, get rid of the rest.

[Anonymous]

We donated ours. After researching a bit, I discovered that using the retail prices listed on replacements.com (there may be other websites, too), it was more financially beneficial to donate it than to sell it for a pittance. I printed all the prices, extrapolated for those pieces which weren't listed for sale, brought to goodwill, and kept the receipts. Ended up being $3k-4k in write-offs that year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep two place settings, get rid of the rest.

Why keep 2 settings?

[Anonymous]

We inherited DH's grandmother's set about 10 years ago. It's the silver rimmed. We haven't used it once, because we have enough pots and pans to hand wash during a holiday meal, we don't want to add all the dishes to the mix too.

[Anonymous]

For all of you with metal rimmed, why not just use it and put in dishwasher and get some chips instead of never using it?

[Anonymous]

How do you get rid of it, do you just throw it in the trash?

I have a Wedgewood tea set that I display, some blue Wedgewood that I like but don't use, and my mom's silver rimmed Ombre Rosenthal set which I don't really like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you get rid of it, do you just throw it in the trash?

I have a Wedgewood tea set that I display, some blue Wedgewood that I like but don't use, and my mom's silver rimmed Ombre Rosenthal set which I don't really like.

You pawn it off on a family member as a treasured heirloom.

[Anonymous]

I sold ours to Replacements.com and kept a few pieces to remind me of it (platter, some b&b plates we use for apps).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was why I made sure not to get gold or silver rimmed stuff. I remembered hand washing it growing up and I knew I wouldn't have time for that!

We have a really pretty white porcelain china that we got for our wedding- Villeroy and Boch manoir. We use it daily and there's not a single chip.

I love the old Villeroy and Boch patterns! We use Petite Fleur every day, and Foxwood Tales for tea parties. It's such great quality yet nice enough for parties.

[Anonymous]

I love ours. It's simple but so delicate and pretty. But if you decide not to keep it, I'm sure someone else would love it.

[Anonymous]

I did not register for wedding china and still ended up with a set that was my Grandma's second set. It was the one I like best of the SEVEN sets of china our family owns between my side and my husband's. I knew I wasn't going to get away without taking one.

And now it sits in a china cabinet (that I also didn't want). It is pretty, but it's not actually china, it's pottery/ceramic. Maybe I will just start using it and see what happens. I don't think it's microwaveable though, which is a little annoying for everyday plates.

Also, yes, I know I need to learn to say no. Working on it . . .

[Anonymous]

We did not register for wedding china, we were in a condo and didn't have space for it. I'm so glad we didn't. I don't know anyone that uses theirs under the age of 55.

[Anonymous]

I'll take it. Tons of people selling and buying china on Facebook marketplace

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wedding china is a vestigial aspect of a lost culture (that in my opinion, should stay lost).

Sell it if you can. Donate it if you can't. If you are anything like me, there just isn't room in the kitchen for something that rarely if ever gets used.

Could you expand on this? Interested to hear and understand.

Registering for china when one gets married is a 20th century tradition deeply related to class. Specifically the UMC. You don't register for china unless you are expected to entertain at a certain level (and if you are above that level you don't need to crowd source your china, crystal, etc by way of your wedding registry). Virtually no one entertains in that formal way anymore -- it just doesn't fit into contemporary life for many reasons (the primary one being that people simply enjoy more casual get-togethers now, the secondary one being that people don't have the kind of help that people of a certain class used to--who wants to wash that china by hand and polish all that silver? No one. It is extremely inconvenient -- so the help did it.). You don't want guests carrying plates that cost $300 each around your living room, piled with taquitos and pigs-in-a-blanket at your NYE get together. You don't need silver chafing dishes for the chili mac you serve at your Super Bowl party. Even dinner parties don't involve all the plated courses and whatnot where a full place setting with china, crystal and sliver would make sense. My grandmother (b. 1917) got all of that stuff out for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter in the 80s; that's the last I've seen of someone regularly entertaining in that way.

Bottom line, most people (no matter their class or ses) do not entertain like this anymore. So ... it's lost culture. It's old-fashioned to invite people over and use linens, crystal, china and silver. Many guests would find it uncomfortable, or charming because it's novel these days, or try-hard. It just isn't what most people do nowadays. Do some people still do it? Sure. That's the vestige.

As far as my opinion that it should stay lost? I am not a fan of conspicuous displays of wealth, and I'm not a fan of overly formal entertaining. But that's really just taste. Just a personal opinion.