Registering for Wedding Gifts

Poor Larry. The questions I've asked him lately. Which china pattern do you like? Could you eat off of square plates? Which shower curtain do you prefer?

I’m choosing items for our gift registry. Asking a guy’s guy what kind of china he likes is akin to asking a girlie girl her favorite bear hunting tactic: going camouflage or smearing oneself with deer urine.

Well, it was Larry who first brought up the subject of gifts. A recent email exchange went like this.

Larry: We don’t need wedding gifts, we can ask friends to bring food for the reception instead.
Susan: The heck we don’t. You can go on eating off of paper plates. You just won’t be married to me.
Larry: I don’t remember eating off paper plates as a biblical grounds for divorce.
Susan: Proverbs 21:9 Better to live on a corner of the roof than a wide house with a quarrelsome wife.

I never coveted nice things. A trip through Housewares makes me exhausted and depressed. It’s the incessant pleading, “need me, buy me!” So when it comes to picking out STUFF for a wedding registry, I get equally exhausted. I don’t want to start wanting things I don’t already want. I’ve gotten by this long without a perfect set of silverware. Or a pasta bowl. I don’t eat pasta. And I’ve never made pizza, let alone needed a pizza wheel.

But when it comes to your wedding, you find yourself rationalizing ... Well maybe I never ALLOWED myself to want a set of matching salad forks. Hmm, I could use nice place mats. And a matching runner. What’s a runner? I don’t know but I should have a matching one. After all, God created beauty. A beautiful table is a godly thing. Especially if we’re going to have people over and create a sense of community with other artists, and artists have a natural sense of beauty … and you’re off to the debtor’s races.

One thing I don’t need is a set of “fine bone china.” A couple years ago, I was at the Goodwill buying some gadget (maybe a newly divorced couple’s pizza wheel). They were putting out a set of dishes that looked nice. I mean, really nice. I figured, this was my one shot at gracious living. So I bought the whole shebang. Dinner plates, salad plates, butter and bread plates, olive plates? Coffee cups, demitasses, espresso cups. A four course serving for 8 people. I got it home and found out it was Richard Ginori, worth $2,000. I got it at the Goodwill for $70. Way to Shop!

Okay, so if we're registering for gifts, what could we use? I was startled at the items on the Bed Bath & Beyond “Reigstry Check List.” Maybe this covered every couple from Alaskan Park Ranger life partners, to Mississippi Mamas who deep fry their spinach: Basting Brush, Citrus Zester, A CAKE DOME? Egg Slicer, Mandoline (??), Deep Fryer, Electric Can Opener, Electric Knife, Electric Teakettle, Electric Fondue Pot (as opposed to the manual Fondue Pot?), Grilling Machine, Sandwich Maker. A sandwich maker? Don’t they mean, "your hands?”

Okay, well I could use some everyday china, to give the Ginori a rest. My favorite place setting "ZaZen" in aqua enamel. It costs $80 for 16 pieces. Four people, one course meal. That's more than I paid to serve a three-course meal to eight people on fine china.


The stuff I thought was reasonably priced, that I would have considered buying, was in the “Off To College” collection. That was depressing.




I picked out a few patterns I liked and sent them to Larry. He liked the last two the best.

Larry: The blue/brown ones. Then the ones that look like Target Practice.
Susan: Yes, the easier to drop meat on your plate.

But the Target practice plates ran $80 for a four-piece place setting.
I liked the blue-brown ones, but we had too much of a theme going: blue/aqua with brown. It’s already our wedding colors, bedding and towels.

Would we wake up in 2011 and shudder, "everything is so Ott-Six!" and spray paint everything Neon Orange just to break up the monotony?


So I chose this groovy Paisley pattern from BB&B. But they're expensive! And the plates are square. My friend Hannah loved them.
She and her husband have square dishes.

"Square dishes are great. We got ours at the Pottery Barn!"

Oh gosh. I hadn't even thought of Pottery Barn when it came to gifts. Now what? Maybe they've got the perfect dishes. Well, lfor all I know they’ve got blue-brown plates in the shape of a trapezoid.

I may end up telling Larry he’s going to have to get used to eating off of $2,000 china until we can afford square paisley.