Casual Dinnerware Sets

Welcome to our section on casual dinnerware sets. Here you will find everything you need to know in order to select a top quality casual dinnerware set and get it without paying an arm and a leg, which I think we can all agree is a very important part in the dinnerware selection process!

Before I go any further, I suppose it's a pretty good idea to define what I mean by casual dinnerware set. Everyone has a different opinion and idea of what constitutes casual, so spelling it out right upfront should save us from any confusion or mixed ideas later on down the line.

Casual Dinnerware Sets: Most of the time, a casual dinnerware set is usually sold as a service for four people. That is to say, the basic set is made up of sixteen pieces. Those pieces almost always consist of four cups, four saucers, four salad plates, and four dinner plates. Sometimes casual sets go up to twenty pieces, and in that case you can expect to add soup bowls or dessert plates (sometimes referred to as bread plates). Likewise sometimes you can expect mugs instead of cups and or desert plates instead of saucers. But you get the basic layout idea here, right? Good.

But just in case, I want to say just a couple of things about each of those things above just to sort of flesh out the explanation in case you are an absolute newbie when it comes to these sorts of things. First off dinner plates are the main pieces in any dinnerware sets, I don't care if we're talking casual or formal or whatever. Salad plates, on the other hand, are smaller than dinner plates and are usually used to serve, you guessed it, salad or occasionally vegetables or something like that. Cups can range in size but they generally may be coffee cups or smaller mugs. And finally saucers are like very small plates and they sit underneath the coffee cups or mugs. Most people think they are just for show, but they do serve a purpose; which is to catch spills from the coffee cups. See, you learn something new everyday!

Casual Dinnerware Sets Material: What does your casual dinnerware set have to be made of? Should they be fine china or bone china? Probably not. Should they be porcelain or maybe pottery? How about stoneware or maybe Melamine? Melamine is made of plastic resin and so it's a fairly popular material to use for casual dinnerware sets. But the simple and inexorable truth of the matter is that it really doesn't matter what kind of material your set is made out of. Granted China doesn't really scream casual...but whatever floats your boat is perfectly ok with me, I hereby give you permission to use any material you want!

One of the best things about casual dinnerware (and why you may not want to use fine china for your casual set) is because they are almost always dishwasher safe. Let's face it, if you can't dump it all into the dishwasher to clean up afterwards, it's not really casual is it? So when looking for a casual dinnerware set, be sure to find out if it is dishwasher safe, believe it or not that will make all the difference in the world!