Canton bride-to-be Adrien Cissell never planned to have fine china; the formality didn’t really suit the 32-year-old mom’s on-the-go lifestyle.
“Space was a part of it … and it was never something I thought I’d need,” she explains. “I’m just not a super girly-girl.”
She’s one of many brides-to-be who have released themselves from the shackles of tradition. Only 33 percent of Southern couples register for formal china, and that’s just 8 percent more than their Northern counterparts, according to wedding Web site TheKnot.com. And according to market researcher Pam Danziger of Unity Marketing, formal dinnerware sales have fallen from $1 billion in 2001 nationally to $294 million in 2008.
But after Cissell became engaged in January, she learned her mother was passing her formal china to her, so she updated the collection by registering for a few fine china serving pieces from the Philippe Deshoulieres “Excellence” pattern. And because she loves the idea of coffee and dessert, she selected Monique Lhuillier “Charms” teacups and dessert plates, which feature a delicate charm bracelet motif and her favorite animal —- a turtle.
Cissell unwittingly followed an emerging trend in fine china: mix it up to make it “you.”
Gone are the days when entertaining meant a cabinet stocked with 12 uniform sets of matching five-piece place settings. While one’s groom may be the same day in and day out, the table needn’t be. Indeed, from incorporating family heirlooms to pairing high-end pieces with casualware or even creating a potpourri of patterns, the key to modern china is that anything goes.
“Your table should be an expression of yourself, and brides today are getting used to that,” says Joanna Kartalis, national director of the registry for Bloomingdale’s. “You can mix and match; that’s what keeps it alive.”
To help push that message this year, Bloomie’s partnered with Brides.com to create a “set the table” interactive tool, allowing shoppers to virtually create a place setting from a variety of offerings.
Take, for instance, pairing Vera Wang for Wedgwood’s “Vera Lace” fine china dinner plates (a simple gold or platinum-rimmed white plate) with colorful chargers and salad plates. Or perhaps dress up everyday dishes with fine china items, such as a smashing soup tureen. Not one to host a six-course meal but prefer inviting friends over for drinks and dessert? Consider registering for extra dessert plates and champagne flutes.
“The point is to register for something you’ll use today and next week, not in 20 years,” says Anja Winikka, editor of TheKnot.com. “The idea is that the couples really will use it, instead of just following tradition like their grandmothers did.”
Even with her wedding more than a year away, Atlantan Erin Vogel, 25, knows she’ll register for a full set of china, in addition to everyday dishes.
“There’s never been a question. You get married and you register for china —- that’s what you do,” she says.
“I’d like something classic that I can always pull out and use with other things,” especially her collection of vintage-inspired dessert plates from Anthropologie.
In contrast, bride Julie Brock of Newnan is bucking this new mix-and-match practice in favor of tradition. The 25-year-old teacher, who is getting married this June, registered for 12 place settings of Waterford “Bassano” (an ornate leaf pattern with platinum detail) at Macy’s to complement the sterling silver pieces given by her grandmother.
She says she hopes to use it as often as her mother does, pulling out the china, crystal and sterling silver at least once a week for a family dinner.
“It was like our own little cotillion,” Brock recalls of her childhood. “What better way to thank [wedding guests] than to have them over for dinner and pull out the china?”
In preparing for her nuptials set for this month, Lisa Dobbs of Brookhaven passed over formal china in favor of simple white casual dishes.
“We did not see any point, at this point in our lives, to have people spend that type of money on something that we were not going to use every day,” she says.
They did, however, splurge by registering for Waterford wine glasses and champagne flutes.
“I think I might eventually get china,” she says. “It’s a wait-and-see kind of thing.”