How to Set Your Table?

Setting a beautiful and festive table for holiday dinners and buffets is as important as serving a sumptuous, traditional holiday meal. In today’s, fast, running world, nobody has much time to eat, let alone set a table properly. It’s not possible to incorporate these setting in your everyday lifestyle, but when organizing a buffet or social get together, a beautiful table will undoubtedly elevate your moods. It does not take more than a little planning to add a touch of grace and refinement that will set the tone for the evening to come.

The Basic Table Setting
One can find a lot of variations in the way one can set up a table. The setup totally depends upon what is being served and the formality of the meal. Breakfast, brunch or lunch need a more relaxed setting than dinner; while a casual dinner requires less tableware than a formal dinner.  A basic table setting, suited for breakfast, brunch, lunch and casual dinners should be arranged as follows:

• Dinner plate must be kept in the center, letting at least 24 inches for each place setting
• Bread and butter plate should be placed at the top left  of the dinner plate
• A soup/salad bowl is to be placed on top of the dinner plate, as needed
• A dinner fork placed on the direct left of the dinner plate
• A knife and teaspoon placed on the direct right of the dinner plate (the cutting edge of the knife should face the plate)
• A napkin folded to the left of the fork
• A drinking glass placed directly above the spoon and knife
• A coffee/tea cup and saucer to the right of the drinking glass

Elegant Dinner Touches
If the occasion lies somewhere between the realm of casual and formal, or if you feel like dining in elegance, then the following additions should be added to the basic setting:

• Add a salad fork to the left of the dinner fork
• Add a soup spoon between the teaspoon and the knife
• A steak knife may be added to the right of the knife as needed
• If wine is being serving, the wine glass should be placed to the right of the drinking glass
• The coffee/tea cup and saucer may alternately be brought to the table at the end of the meal

Formal Dining
In case, the occasion is a formal one, then you need to use the fine china and include the dessert fork, cocktail fork and fish knife, in your cutlery. To the above setup, you can add the following:

• Move the salad fork to the right of the dinner fork (salad should be served following the entrée)
• Add a cocktail fork to the right of the newly placed dinner fork
• Add a fish knife to the right of the dinner knife
• Add a butter knife or spreader to the bread and butter plate
• Add a service plate on top of the dinner plate, beneath the soup bowl
• Remove the coffee/tea cup and saucer as these should be brought at the end of the meal
• Glassware should be set  at a slight diagonal with the highest point being the drinking glass at the tip of the knife, a red wine glass to the down left, a white wine glass further down left and finally a champagne flute at the lowest point above the teaspoon.
• The napkin can be folded and placed on top of the soup bowl, or in a wine goblet

Besides the cutlery and glassware, the other most essential aspect improving the atmosphere, is the type and amount of table linens and place settings. For informal dining, no tablecloth is needed and good quality paper napkins are acceptable; and for formal dinners, it should be served on a linen tablecloth with matching cloth napkins and place settings if possible.