unpacking

How much tableware does it take to feed a wedding crowd of seventy?  Um, a lot.

Fortunately, we did some stockpiling of thrift store finds when we visited Ohio last winter, and now that we've officially got boots on the ground here in the Midwest, it's time to start unpacking the things we stashed and get to work doing lots of dishes.  After an afternoon of counting and calculating, it looks like we've got enough silverware, although the fork situation is still a little tight.

And we're still short on plates.  I think we'll figure it out in the next few days.  We'll just have to hit the thrift stores one more time, which is something I'm almost always looking for an excuse to do, anyway.  We already have a pretty good mix of both dinner plates and dessert plates--some of which are actually saucers masquerading as dessert plates, but we're hoping our guests will be too busy to notice...

And I added to the plate totals by quite a bit when I decided--after some careful consideration--to use my Grandma Sally's Limoges china.  It's pretty stuff, made in 1948 in Ohio, of all places, and while the set's sustained its fair share of chips and cracks over the years, it's still nice to look at.

When I told my dad I was thinking of using it at the wedding dinner, he reminded me that it was "mine," after all, to do with as I pleased.  At the same time, though, he pointed out that things frequently get broken at parties.  He didn't want me to make a decision that I would regret later.  Especially when heirloom china--or something as close as I'll ever get to heirloom china--was involved.

And so, I thought it over, and I decided that there's no sense in having something if you're not going to use it.  And if a plate is going to get broken, I'd much rather have it happen in the midst of our wedding celebration.  What better time could there be for that sort of thing?  I hope my Grandma Sally would agree with me...

Twelve days to go.  And it seems like the to-do list is getting longer, not shorter.  Our first day here has been pretty slow and quiet--have I mentioned that, now that I'm back in the full flush of health, my partner-in-crime seems to be suffering though a respiratory illness of his own?  Everyone is telling us it's the stress, but it's really starting to feel like the universe might be out to get us...

Sick or not, though, we're going to have to get moving.  I'll be back on Wednesday with an update for you all...

tiny surprise

A well-used knife block full of old kitchen knives came through the shop today.  Nothing very exciting, at a glance.  At the end of the day, though, one of my co-workers pointed out a funny little detail on two of the knives.

It's a little strange, but I thought it was sweet.

silver

No, we will not be the first couple in the world to have mismatched silverware at our wedding reception.  I take comfort in the fact, though, that even the cool kids are still doing it.  Of course, we aren't doing it to be cool.  Not exactly.  It's more that we thought the effect would be cool.  We're probably not saving money--it could have been cheaper to rent--but it's really hard to explain to the folks at the rental company that you think it would be really fun to have lots of forks and spoons that look nothing like each other.

And besides, the whole thing has given us a great excuse to indulge in one of our favorite activities.  We spent hours--days, probably--poking through funny little thrift stores in and around my hometown in Ohio.  And you know how much we love treasure-hunting.

I think we've finally come up with enough of everything.  I'm still feeling a little insecure about spoons, but hey, a bride has to have something to stress about, right?

What I really wanted to do--and it never would have worked--was to have real silver at our wedding.  Every once in awhile, when I'm at the Goodwill, I'll see old silver mixed in with all the stainless steel in the silverware bins.  And the best part?  It's still the same price.  It's kind of my dream now to have an entire set of "good" silver that I've pieced together at twenty-nine cents a fork.  I'll let you know how that works out.

Of course, we're not registering for silver.  I'm not that kind of girl. (In fact, I'm not sure I'm even a "registering" kind of girl, at all.  I think that's something I'll have to address another time.)

It's kind of funny, though.  Pretty much the only people that seem to think that the 21st Century American couple should register for something so decadent is, um, the people that want to sell it to you.  The wedding industry is still all over silver, which I find amusing in a cloying, condescending way.

I'm not saying I don't like the heft and the history of fancy silverware.  I love it.  When you're paying three hundred dollars a setting, though, instead of--I don't know--say, thirty?  It seems like a real cut-and-dry sort of decision.

Oh, unless you're at the Goodwill.

So this is the beginning of my collection.  At the rate I'm going, I'll probably be retired before we have enough forks to have company over for Sunday dinner.  And of course, the pieces aren't going to match.  Which is absolutely fine.  There's just something kind of regal about silver.  When you hold it, it feels important.  Which is probably why people go all ga-ga over expensive flatware in the first place.

And I'm fascinated by the fact that families used to have their silverware monogrammed:

I'll be honest.  I kind of have this fantasy now of hosting a fancy, modern wedding where the wedding cake is topped with a fork and spoon, instead of the traditional bride-and-groom caketopper.

Admit it.  You can kind of see it, too, can't you?