(Know what? I don't know anything at all about what He-Mouse and I ought to register for. I mean, we live together and we have some nice things (a serviceable toaster, a cast-iron skillet), but we're still getting on our feet, financially. So we do not have, for instance, glasses that match. For some reason, we have only six teaspoons of our ten place-setting Target silverware. I have no idea where the others have gone. Anyway, I decided to seek some help with registering, and who better to ask than the High WASP herself? She comes from the land of owning china and silver, after all. So here is LPC from A Midlife of Privilege, with the first of two posts on registering. Come back next Wednesday for part two!)
Table Impunity by High WASP on Polyvore.com
Hello little mice. LPC here, also known as Lisa, from Privilege. Our dear Souris has asked me to come and say silly things about wedding registries. In fact, she asked me to tell you what I know, but all I know are silly things. Which are often about what one needs to have to set one's table.
Alors.
The native fun of registering for wedding presents can swiftly devolve into confusion, or even distress. This is largely because people are apt to Have Opinions. Which they will want to tell you. I unfortunately cannot help with statements like "Purple is a horror," or "Yes, I do want a flat screen TV bigger than your car." I can help with opinions like, "You MUST have formal china," or, "But dear, that is not the Done Thing," or, "Everyone always registers for crystal." Because High WASPs (my culture of origin) invented the Done Thing, and, although disappearing from earth in alarming numbers, we stand on our authority in the world of china, glass, and silver.
The debate about table-centric wedding registries usually pits acquiring objects of social significance against furnishing the life you actually lead. Pressure to register for fancy stuff, if any, will most likely come from family members who worry about propriety. Or who want to use your wedding for a statement of wealth. A modern version of a dowry. You do not need to comply. Impunity. That's how High WASPs do it. The Sturdy Gal says, "Oh rubbish. The silliest thing I have ever heard." No matter what anyone says, at whatever decibel level, there's no right or wrong, even in the High WASP canon. And if anyone was going to obsess about virtue in table settings, it's us.
Yes, society has decreed that a chunk of financial resources will come your way when you get married. If you want to use those resources to buy gold plates to keep your cupboard company, go right ahead. If you want to use those resources for something to eat off of every day, go right ahead.
That said, I recommend you furnish the life you will lead. Rather than collect goods. Life is short. We have to eat, and over the years you will be putting a lot of food into your mouth. With any luck people you love will be eating with you. Maybe around a table, maybe at a kitchen counter. Buy plates for those moments. Imagine where those plates will be kept, where they will be used, how on earth they will get cleaned. Same goes for glasses, forks and knives, table mats.* Household good have lives. The lives you give them.
You are not registering for objects. You are registering for use. Not stuff, but the backdrop to memories you will look back on down the decades. I know. Time. Your family. The values you will work so hard to establish and pass down to children, if you have them. It happens while we eat.
So just think, for a moment, about these little things.
1.) the life you will lead in the next 10 years (We don't buy stocks and bonds with much longer than a 10 year horizon, why china?)
2) an aesthetic that brings you joy (classic? artsy? regal? culturally-referent?)
3) what sort of budget your present givers can sustain (make sure everyone can find something on the list that will let them feel the glow of good present-giving)
Understand your philosophy, if you will. Only then go shopping. Perhaps you knew all this already. "Shopping for what?" you might ask. "Pretty things that serve you well," I would answer. With more specific advice to follow.
*And by the way, reclaim the vocabulary. Do not let anyone tell you have to call this stuff barware, or tableware, or flatware, or even silverware. If you want to call a fork a fork, do so. Commercial euphemisms not required.
11 comments:
Wise. Wise. I need to write about the registry, and what I learned. Perhaps this weekend.
We got things, beutiful simple things, that we eat and drink with every day. I think it brings both of us a lot of joy to use them (think of both of you). And, being of high WASP origins myself I inherited things when I wed. As you do. Which means 14 place settings of china. So when it came to china, crystal, silver, we didn't register. I knew we'd inherit them sooner or later. And while I love my china, we almost never use it, even though my granmother (who it originally belonged to) tells me regularly that 'life is to short to not eat off your good china.' She does for breakfast some times. Because when you are 80 you can. We'll use it more when we have a dining room.
But learn how to say "oh rubbish." LPC is right. You'll need that.
Oh, and don't buy cheap crystal. Almost all of ours is smashed, and it's not quite four months yet.
This is an awesome post. Registering was terrifying to us at first, but we got things we both needed and that are still beautiful and bring us joy. And skipped almost all of the fancy stuff, because I'll take my mother's hand-me-down china from Poland over generic dep't store patterns that I'm unlikely to use for at least another decade any day.
Indeed: most excellent and wise advice. I have seen friends register for super pricey soup ladles and tongs; glass pitchers too heavy to lift and china too good to use. I shall be saving this post for when the time comes - practical, useful and pretty. Thanks Mouse and LPC!
And three of my absolute favorite Internet people chiming in to concur? Thanksgiving indeed. Next week's post is full of links to stuff. I do like stuff, I confess. Unfortunately, I have found that the pricey glass breaks too, especially when being handwashed in the vicinity of granite counters...Mouse, thanks for having me. Meg, I am looking forward to your usual smart, take-no-prisoners take on registering.
I think this is the best registry post I've ever read - one that will make sense to both my mother (she of "the way things are done" and myself. Thank you for such wise and centering words about something that's so surprisingly complicated. Happy Thanksgiving all.
Yup, shopping for forks and knives when you don't have a table is quite rewarding. Everything goes out the window :)
Don't register for something you can't bear to break. My husband broke a friend's Czech one-of-four crystal glass as we were washing dishes. We froze, horrified.
She rolled her eyes, flipped her hair back, said with her Alabama drawl, "It's just a glass. It's meant to be used. Ah don't use anything Ah'm not prepared to lose. Don't worry about it. Ah mean it, y'all." And she did.
thanks for this post. this is exactly what i'm going through right now, but worse. my boyfriend and i are struggling with the idea of telling people what to get us, specifically because we don't absolutely "need" anything. but he's so much more radical about it...he thinks the idea of a registry is downright obnoxious, and my family is pushing me to hurry up and register asap. fun times. this has inspired me to blog about this asap, as soon as i emerge from my food coma. thanks.
Terrific post, and terrific advice LPC! We registered for things we wanted to use now, and we have not yet regretted not getting the ultra-fancy "special occasion" dishes or crystal wine goblets. People may try to tell you that you have to ask for X on your registry "or you'll never have X," but we asked for what we wanted now, what we have space for now, what we could use now, instead of trying to guess at what we might want 20 years down the road. If, at that time, we find that our lack of crystal goblets truly does leave a hole in our lives, we can always buy them ourselves :-)
I agree with the wisdom of LPC at privilege. I think you are very sensible petitechablis, you may find as I did, that tastes change! Mine have in the 35 years of marriage.
Off to practice my "That's a bunch of rubbish" face. My registry does not have a dish to speak of, but I did indulge my love of baking and supported several Etsy artists!
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