Vintage China Plates: Tell me about your experience

Here's the table mockup. I'm doing the lace overlays and a "camel" colored tablecloth (it's a richer beige)...

I don't have experience with real china, but I had talked about it with my venue about it. Does the place you rent from do the clean up/busing of table? If not, is there someone that would do it? Also, do they wash the plate or do you have to do that? I assume since you are renting they would wash them. I was wanting to do this but I couldn't fathom spending $5 per person for place settings. Sadly we are going the plastic route which I am quite sad about. Our venue said basically the charge is for the cleaning not necessarily the plates. I would do it if you can afford it and if you have someone to bus the tables.

My caterer is providing the plates so i wasn't going to pay more to get the vintage plates but i totally thought about it. i wouldn't be too worried about someone breaking a plate if there are servers, buffet i might be more concerned about since people would be walking around with the plates.

one other thing i realize was that yes the vintage plates look really nice in the pictures but i'm not entirely sure if guests would notice.

According to the plate rental, we would ask our caterer to rinse the plates. If they won't, I can hire someone from the venue to do just about anything, so I imagine I could hire someone for a couple hours to bus tables and rinse them off. The plates can absolutely not go in the dishwasher.

Because we have a very reasonable full service buffet ($15/pp... I know it's a fantastic price. It's "upscale" bbq... delicious and highly recommended vendor for my DOC so win-win), so we could afford to upgrade our tableware.

I am not doing this but I had a friend who used vintage china in her wedding and none were broken or abused during the dinner. She, however, collected plates from thrift shops with her mother the year leading up to the wedding (she wanted more of a mismatched look). It sounds like you got a pretty good deal though! I would just take into account 1) children (if you're having them), 2) location (will the plates be on tables in a hall or outside in a barn, etc) and 3) the average rowdiness of your guests (if you think everyone will be sloppily drunk or if it's a quieter crowd). Honestly, I think a group of adults can be trusted not to break plates but, hey, you never know!

@Jeanne Thanks! We're outside at a vineyard. My side will is more of the elegant, quieter side while FH's side is a mix of both lol. I have a bartender and doing only wine/beer so hopefully no one will get sloppy drunk. I think we'll be okay... I'm a worrier and wanted to get thoughts/opinions of maybe things I haven't thought of.

I think it's doable. Both my mom and I have been fawning over china plates... we even thought about collecting the china ourselves, but the peddlers mall were pretty highly priced for china as well as the antique stores around me.

Maybe you can do the vintage china plates on your sweetheart or head table only.

I'm not a fan of the mismatched china look, honestly. But you are, so that's what matters. Honestly, with the tablescape you've put together, I think the white plates would be a little quieter and not take away from it.

My experience with renting china is that very little gets broken; glasses...well, that's different... The cost is very reasonable, and yes, usually you have to rinse them.

Don't they offer insurance? All our rental companies did.

I'll have to ask about insurance! She's a fairly new rental company that focuses on china rentals; our tent rental company (whose been fabulous) recommended them.

I'm still debating on whether I go with the white real plates and silverware for $5/person through the caterer or do china plates for $1/plate (not sure what the silverware rentals will run price wise yet). I love the mismatched look as long as they're the white/ivory background with a small design. I do like the idea of just doing the head table with the china... my mom offered to look at my gramma's china to see if we have 14 place settings (I'm having a "king's" table with WP's SOs seated with us as I didn't want a sweetheart table but I didn't want to leave out the SOs); although I'm also a little worried about using her china even though my mom and gramma have both thought it was an excellent idea.

As for the glassware, that's taken care of through the vineyard, so I don't have to worry about renting a whole bunch of glass thankfully (I'm now more understanding of why their cases of wine/beer are more expensive as well).

"Talking" this out with WW really helps me think of pros/cons of the china... Thank you!

Just wondering if you have scoured Craigslist for vintage china? I found about 1/3 of mine for free or quit cheap on Craigslist. My mother and aunt helped a lot as well, digging into their collections and at the local free-cycle place near my mother. Of course, I live in the Boston area so the selection of used wedding items on Craigslist may be better than in a more rural area.

Definitely check on the insurance thing if your vendor charges $10/ broken plate.

No experience with this, but it looks soooooo pretty that I think you should do this!

@Hannah When we first started planning last year I was on craigslist a lot and searching through antique markets. Craigslist is lackluster at best in my area for a lot of the things I was looking for. Ebay the shipping costs were outrageous. I was shocked at how expensive second hand china was priced. After trying to find some with minimal luck, we also decided we did not want to have to store and resell it after the wedding. This is $1/plate and $0.50/dessert plate (need to get the fork/knife priced out), but I think we can actually do it for a very reasonable amount of money considering our original $5/place setting and even adding in a person to bus the tables and clean the dishes if our caterer won't do that.

@Gaga I really want too, and my mom and FH are "in" and think it's a good idea. Hopefully, I can make this work logistically speaking!

I wish you posted this a few weeks ago! My sister and I have been going through our parents house and we came across A LOT of old china dishes. We donated them. If I had known that you were looking for dishes I would have made arrangements to have them shipped to you. If I come across anymore, I'll let you know.

Thanks Ruth! I wish I had mentioned this a while ago then! of course, I know it's part of that whole pinterest thing that I don't need them etc, but I do love them!

I didn't think it was really possible because of how expensive it is to rent them typically from the companies I check. But these are so reasonably priced that I think I can do this for around the same amount that I was going to do for white restaurant real plates, and my amazing rental company recommended them pretty highly.

I see this post is from 2015 and I would love to see your tables at your wedding and what you chose. I'm sure everything turned out beautiful.