Registries

Several of you have asked about our registries.
Nathan has indulged me and we went old school on our registry from the standpoint of having both every-day ware and formal options. As most of you know, we entertain fairly regularly, so we have focused our registry in support of this. We are also merging two established households and recognize that one way to avoid living in a constant state of "that's yours, and I like mine better" is to replace what we had with some things that are OURS. (and yes, local charities will benefit from this decision as we replace the old)

We have registered at Gump's and Sur la Table, which both have extensive easy-to-use web sites on which you can browse our registry and place orders.

In addition, for those of you in Portland, we have registered at Twist. (NW 23rd store, though we're assured that all three stores will have the list this week.) Sadly, they don't have their wedding registry system online (it's all done on paper in scribbled handwriting only the sales guy can read) but they are happy to help you by phone or in the stores.

We also registered at Bloomingdales, because we fell in love with some dishes there that weren't available in Portland or at Gumps, though now we're finding the online experience at Bloomingdales is a bit of a drag. Their rationale is that their web software doesn't allow the purchaser to track their order, so they want people to call the store and speak with a human to ensure that they can deliver exceptional customer service. We are working to move these items to the Gumps list just to simplify things. Please do feel free to call them if you have questions. Some items can be ordered easily from the web site.

The patterns we've selected are:
Juliska--Berry and Thread in white for every day use, with some serving pieces and salad plates from the Jardins du Monde pattern just for kicks.
Bernardaud--The primary pattern is called Black Gold. The accent plates are from the Dune pattern in platinum.
Ercuis--stainless pattern called "Citelle"
Pouiforcat--silverplate in the Cardinal pattern, which is similar to the stainless, but features beautiful detail work.
We haven't yet picked barware, but we are already blessed with a nice collection of pint glasses from Linenkugel's, and merged our collections of wineglasses that already matched.
We also picked a few "accent" pieces from Michael Aram and Annieglass that caught our eyes and we think will compliment our primary patterns.

In any case, we really do think that having such a great group of friends with whom to celebrate our wedding is a wonderful gift in itself. We are excited for all of our diverse groups of friends from out of town to get together in one place. We have been noticing lately that our circles of friends have become thoroughly, and in some cases surprisingly, intertwined. We are anticipating a fun weekend with you all.