Combination of questions about dishes?

dinnerware sets service for 8 image

guitarsolo

I love these dishes from Target but cannot afford service for 8. I had the idea to mix either plain brown or white plates in with it to lower cost (perhaps melamine material)
Here is the link: http://www.target.com/Botanical-Dinnerware-Collection/dp/B0011YUIYM/qid=1231811742/ref=br_1_16/177-3016963-4603901?ie=UTF8&node=15344791&frombrowse=1&pricerange=&index=tgt-mf-mv&field-browse=15344791&rank=pmrank&rh=&page=2

1) Would the melamine idea even work? Would it be tacky?
2) Having a hard time finding a brown that matches, any suggestions?
3) Can I mix square plates with round or no?

I know it's a ton of questions but I am concerned too because my mom told me stoneware (which is what those dishes are) chips easily and will show white underneath. So, your dishes will look crappy in a year or so. That leaves me wondering what my options are as I like a lot of the melamine sets at Target.
Comments and suggestions please =) Thank you in advance!
I meant to say that the plates are earthenware, sorry!

Answer
If you have your heart set on those dishes i would consider using white underneath and using a napkin as an accent on colour. Say the green or the tan colour. Or freshen it up with a green plate underneath. I would definitely NOT go the melamine, it is a little tacky. There are really no hard and fast rules but generally round and square together i would say no, it doesnt look right.

My honest advice would be to consider a crisp pure white dinner setting. White can be casual or very elegant. With white other colour dishes can be used as an accent. Over time your taste will change and white never goes out of style. White looks beautiful on a christmas table with a white linen cloth teamed with either silver or gold, and looks just as lovely at a bbq as it does a formal dinner.

Choose a brand that you can add pieces to as this gives you the best opportunity to extend your setting and also replace any pieces that may get broken over time. I'm not sure what country your in (im in Australia) but you could try a brand like Maxwell Williams. You can buy a classic basic dinner set and a huge variety of all white matching single pieces are always available. You can add things later like noodle bowls, serving platters, jugs, S & P shakers, dipping bowl, divider dishes really is endless what they make. I like it because it is inexpensive, good quality and years on mine still looks great.

This is the maxwell Williams "white basics" range http://www.maxwellandwilliams.com.au/mw/range-wba.asp

Even if you don't have this brand where you are i'm sure there is something just like it. Good luck with your choice :)

How many formal place settings do we really need?

Crazybird

Literally everything me and my fiance own is from either a thrift store, flea market or pawn shop. We don't need a bunch of material crap to be happy, and we put money into our savings account like crazy. We do tend to host a lot of small dinners (like 4 or 5 people), and we've really been wanting a nice set of stemware and flatware for a long time. We've requested no gifts for our wedding (we really don't want a bunch of stuff we already have like pans and towels), so we think now would be a good time to buy these items, so we can remember them as something special as our wedding "gift" to ourselves. We're planning on spending about $1500. For that, we can get a service for 12 flatware set and a 16 piece stemware set (8 wineglasses, and 8 iced beverage glasses), or a service for 8 flatware set, the 16 pieces of stemware and 8 awesome turkey napkin rings. The only reason the napkin rings even caught our eye is because we both find Thanksgiving as our favorite holiday, and we can really picture these on our table for every future Thanksgiving in the years to come. I can seriously never ever imagine hosting 12 people at a formal sit down dinner, but the saleslady insists the extra 4 place settings are the better way to go and we'll regret it if we don't get them. We kind of feel like we'd regret it more not getting those napkin rings. We have never spent so much on frivolous things like this, and we really want to make the right choice in getting the items we will use and enjoy most. More than anything though, we ant to get something we can always remember as having as newlyweds, and something we can pass down to our future children. Does anyone have any suggestions on which way to go? I know it's "traditional" to have a service for 12, but do you actually ever use all 12 place settings at once? Or if you were in our situation, would you get the napkin rings that really grabbed your attention and get a more reasonable number of place setting you can actually imagine using?

And we're looking at Reed and Barton, which is an extremely nice brand. The number of glasses isn't really negotiable to us, as we frequently have 10+ people over for drinks, but not for sit down dinners. And don't worry, we are by no means draining our savings or spending more than we can afford on this purchase, we simply picked an amount that seems reasonable to us for our first important houseware purchase together :-)

Answer
I personally was never able to buy special dinnerware. I hope you love what you picked out. I will probably inherit my Mother-in-Law's Desert Rose pattern, which I really don't care for. My two sisters-in-law both have two or three sets of 12 each that they have purchased or inherited.

If you are choosing a classic pattern for all these things, and are buying at a large, nation-wide chain (like Macy's) then I'd go for the 8-piece settings and get the napkin rings. Now, you can "register" just like a newly married couple for the rest of your items, and include things like the large serving platter, and other special service pieces. It will be there in the future if you want to continue buying one piece at a time until you've got all twelve settings. Face it, as your family grows, the number of people at your table will, too. And there's always that nice couple across the street to invite.

You could also mention to people who ask that you are registered at Macy's for gifts.

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