China Patterns

Since I got engaged (and even before) I knew that I wanted to register for china and crystal to start building a collection so that when the time comes where it would be appropriate to use it (ie when I brave cooking my first Christmas/Thanksgiving Turkey) I have something beautiful to eat it on. Without having to buy an entire set at one time.

As mentioned before it took a bit of convincing to get Ian to agree with my way of thinking but he has come around.

Yesterday we descended on The Bay (downtown Victoria) to attempt to pick china and crystal. After our 3rd "why registering is great!" speech we were set loose with our scanner.

We started with crystal. I had seen a pattern in the catalogue that I liked (Waterford Siren) and wanted to see, touch, feel etc. but sadly they didn't have it in stock. Below is a pick for your viewing pleasure (sorry it's so small).

To add insult to injury nothing they had in stock really leaped out at us as "we want to look at this for the rest of our lives".

Feeling discouraged we moved onto china. Ian and I had seen a Kate Spade pattern at the Wedding and Honeymoon Fair in Vancouver that we liked and they had the same pattern in stock. However... it was way out of our price range (I guess you pay for the name). So we moved on to slightly more inexpensive (but equally as pretty) patterns.

Some we liked but were still too expensive. Others that Ian liked I thought were boring. Ones that I liked Ian thought were either too frilly, girly or ugly.

We settled (after a lot of debate) on this pattern, my favourite and Ian said, "it's okay":

It's called Renwick Platinum by Noritake.

After leaving the store with little more than the china on the registry we decided to pow-wow about our "next move".

Ian was feeling a little restricted by the lack of selection that we have been seeing, I didn't think it was that bad but Ian being the internet guy is used to endless selection. We decided that the Sears registry was out because they seem to be only good for the small appliances which we really don't need. We still like Home Outfitters because so far they have had the best selection and we are sticking with The Bay for now as they have been the only ones that offer the fine china.

Ian also mentioned that he really wants a REALLY good set of knives and REALLY good pots and pans. Which I think is a great idea but so far we have seen very limited selection, especially on the knife front. So I did a bit of googling around and found that Bed Bath and Beyond has a great selection of... well everything. They even do fine china.

So I told Ian that I was impressed by their website and that he should have a look. Judging by the email that I just got saying that Ian had opened a registry I am guessing that he was equally impressed.

We need to get into a store to see for sure but I'm thinking we might stick with them. There is the small problem of the only two stores are on the mainland. However, we are over there almost every weekend so I don't think that will be a major problem.

SO - on to registry #4... Oi