Wedding China Announcement
A special virtual exhibition at the International Museum of Dinnerware Design
Goes live on December 21, 2021
Read below to learn how you can participate in this event!
Wedding China is often defined as dishes and dinnerware that a couple receives as wedding gifts. Perhaps the couple has registered a specific china pattern at a department store, jewelry store, or big box store. Sometimes the “wedding china” is purchased years after the actual wedding event, but is always referred to as their wedding china. Usually it’s not for use every day, but reserved for special occasions or fancy events.
Although it has been widely reported that recent married couples are less interested in lugging material possessions from home to home, recent surveys show that an estimated one third of newlyweds have registered for wedding china and other gifts.
Some gay couples report that gay men don’t need special wedding china because they already own so many sets of dinnerware. They may have been in their partnership for years before the laws changed to allow marriage or commitment ceremonies, or they are older and already have all the household possessions like dishes that they need.
The International Museum of Dinnerware Design is presenting Wedding China as a virtual exhibition based on wedding china that has been donated to the IMoDD permanent collection. IMoDD was founded in 2012, but some of the wedding china dates from the 19th century! And, we would like to invite you to participate!
When the exhibition goes live on December 21, 2021, we invite you to enjoy the selection of wedding china from the IMoDD permanent collection. If available, we will have included the names of the bride and groom, the date and place of the wedding, the manufacturer and pattern of the china, and photographs of the happy couple, AND the names of the donor(s) of the wedding dishes.
We welcome your participation before December 21st!
You do NOT need to donate your wedding china or wedding china that you have inherited. There will be a linked page including YOUR wedding china and the stories connected with it. It will be curated to verify facts, etc. Submitting materials does not guarantee its inclusion in the exhibition. Send the following information and high resolution images of the dinnerware, couple, etc., to: director@dinnerwaremuseum.org
To participate, please provide the following information:
- high resolution images of wedding china, front AND BACK (showing backstamp)
- manufacturer of wedding china
- date and place of wedding
- bride and groom names
- wedding china purchased from (e.g., Hudson’s, Detroit; Bloomingdale’s, New York City)
- your contact name, email, and daytime phone number
Any questions, contact Margaret Carney, director@dinnerwaremuseum.org
Image: Haviland Limoges Silver Anniversary pattern (1894-1931) porcelain wedding china. The two combined sets of 206 pieces total were from the wedding of Edward and Stella Clark Heath who were married in Toledo in 1900, donated by their granddaughter Margaret Nance in 2014 and the wedding of Percival and Alice Highum in 1930, donated to IMoDD in 2016, by Eric and Robin Highum in honor of his parents, Edward and Audrey Highum and grandparents, Percival and Alice Highum.