Mismatched wine glasses from charity shops

Wine glasses tend to be not very popular in charity shops - I've seen loads of places that are selling them for 10 or 20p each! You're unlikely to be able to get the whole 120 at once from one shop, but you should be able to gather 120 fairly fast. It might be worth doing a day trip to a cheaper area that has a lot of charity shops - charity shop prices in more affluent areas tend to be higher than those in poorer areas.

Vintage plates will probably be harder unless you're happy to go for the less popular eras and patterns. Anything traditional/pretty like the 1930s stuff tends to be a couple of pounds a plate at least, but if you're happy to go for 70s and 80s stuff, you can probably find them quite cheaply.

I don't think there is enough time to gather 120 suitable glasses for December and the cost will be more than Ikea in the end, along with the many hours and mileage going around all the charity shops and the stress in not finding what you want. Have a look in 1 charity shop and see what you could get. I have a little bit of experience in this as my partner is a keen collector in a certain kind of glassware and on occasion I am recruited to help search in the charity shops and seen a lot of glass

The donation sentiment is kind but you will not find all 120 in the one shop. As has been mentioned.

Yes you will find miss matched interesting glassware for sure but it will be some wine / beer /pints /- all kinds but if you are looking for just wine then you will struggle in the time frame and then what you will find will not look perticually vintage or miss matched as wine glasses are pretty much the same unless you have loads of time to look. So you may as well get them all from ikea and then you could donate those to the charity shops.

Also remember the hire cost includes delivery / collection and washing and maybe some wastage in breakages too.

I have shot a wedding where they did a similar thing but also they put the date and their names on the glasses which doubled up as favours for people to take home. But it included beer as well as wine glasses.

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Thank you very much for your response-

I think that's a good idea to just go and see what is out there first but agree 120 is quite a big ask for one shop 😅 I also didn't realise that about pricing in more affluent areas so that is a great tip!

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Thank you for your response!

Yes you are totally right about ikea it looks like it will be cheaper to buy our cutlery and glassware from there and donate afterwards - it just seems so unsustainable 😞 you are also right about washing delivery and collection ect- I also don't have the boxes to store them!

Love the picture of the boxes with the wine glasses that looks so good!

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The couple supplied the drinks and you choose your glass that you liked for yourself and you then kept the glass all night then took it home.

Just gone to my archive to pull up some more pictures for you had realised it was 8 years ago

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If you want to try the charity shops then check out the local community ones or ones supporting small charities. I find that the 'big name' charity shops (e.g. Oxfam, British Heart Foundation, Cancr Research etc) tend to be very picky about the stock they take and have prices to match, so you're more likely to find matching sets of glasses at a couple of pounds each. Whereas local community run shops tend to have loads of those Arcoroc glasses (the ones that were given out free with petrol in the 80s!!!) super cheap! Last time I was in the one down the road from me, they had about 70 wineglasses of all kinds for 20p each, and I bet they had more in the back of the store.

Kitty - looks like a trip to Monmouthshire is in order

Its worth a look then in some local charity shops to see how its looking.

Have you looked at renting what you need? Lots of the decoration rental place do glassware and cutlery, as we as catering companies

We’re doing the same for our wedding next year - all crockery, mugs and glassware will be bought from charity shops then donated back after.


So far we’ve used 10 different charity shops to get less than half the quantity you are looking for so, if time is against you, maybe a combo of charity shops and ikea?

Facebook marketplace is great for these things x

I'm doing a similar thing for my wedding next April

Only looking for 80 glasses and have about 60 already. Mostly through people giving away mixed boxes on FB marketplace and others from Charity shops. The bigger lesser known charity shops on the outskirts of towns are generally a lot cheaper. I have only spent about £25 and am giving the glasses to guests as favours. Some are fancy, some are plain, but I'm getting a large pack of fancy waterproof stickers (£6) so they can be individually customised!

Others have given good advice and perhaps this is a long shot, but a while ago I worked for an office that was closing and we had so many glasses to give away (probably 120, many hardly used!) that we put on Freecycle. Perhaps you could try there.... good luck