Here is my second china story.
When DH and I were getting married I didn't want to register because I wanted everyone to give us money for our house downpayment instead. But I really wanted a set of china, or at least something that looked sorta like good china, so.... There's this mailorder company called Domestications which is still around. They were selling china sets for $100. This included 12 full place settings, cups, saucers, large desert plates (nearly as big as dinner plates), serving dishes, creamer and sugar, soup bowls, platters, serving bowls in a variety of sizes, and a teapot. I sent them my money.
In returned I received this HUGE box with a brightly-colored hot pink set in an antique pattern directly from China. Alas, the paint on some of the pieces was badly smeared. So...I created a careful catalog of the smeared-looking pieces, shipped back just the smeared pieces with a careful letter, and...Domestications sent me ANOTHER complete set with 12 place settings, the teapot, the serving platters, the whole shebang. So I ended up with 24 place settings.
At that point a friend of my mom's, a fellow hoarder, gave me a HUGE set of vintage Currier & Ives blue-and-white dishware, the kind you'd buy one-piece-a-week at the grocery store in the 1950s. Assumedly because I hadn't registered. This set had multiple butter dishes, ashtrays, gravy boats, covered dishes, dozens of plates and teacups, serving platters big enough for a 30 lb turkey, etc.
In a happy coincidence, the set looks quite beautiful when paired with the Domestications ultra-cheap hot pink china.
As life would have it, we throw a lot of big pot-lucks for our neighbors, friends and families. Ones for which we easily get 50-75 guests. I just pull out all the "china" and I always have enough. I never have to resort to paper plates. And I don't care whether anything gets broken.