voila!

Behold, the fruits of concerted goodwill- and value-village-combing! A few pieces are not shown, but you get the idea. I think we are wedding-ready, on the plates front.

I think we have all the napkins now, too. We are still working on the silver; and will probably borrow glasses, as we just haven't got room to store 30 wine glasses.

Highlights from some of the recent trips: in the foreground, a curved saucer (Norwegian) sits on a gold-rimmed plate made in Czechoslovakia sometime between 1918 and 1945. Counter-clockwise, the saucer on top of the other stack is a Johnson Bros. piece (England). I don't know how old it is, but the transfers were still applied by hand - there are mistakes! and you can see where the patterns are joined. The inner floral band is in gold, and there is a geometric "key" pattern in black on taupe nearer the rim. The sugar bowl is from my parents, part of the set that inspired our tablescape. The red floral probably won't appear on the table, unless it's serving some small condiment. I just couldn't bear to pass it up, it was so pretty. The last piece is English Crown Ducal Ware, the dark bands on that piece are navy - we have a few bits of "something blue" on the table now, just for fun.