As long as I can remember, I’ve loved putting together pretty table settings. I loved knowing that it was formal, but still not over the top. For me, it’s about the necessities and using pieces to make it beautiful without adding everything but the kitchen sink. It’s important to remember to keep room for other dinner necessities like butter, bread baskets, and salt and pepper so overfilling a table with decor will only make the guest experience unpleasant.

Start with a beautiful tablecloth to act as a base. Then add your charger plate or placemat to the centre of the table setting. On top of this, you’ll want your dinner plate, salad plate, and any other plates required for courses. I like to incorporate the napkin into this as well, and there are plenty of ways to be creative with its placement, whether it be knotted and placed on top, folded with the menu inside, or even folded between layers of plates.

The bread plate should be placed above and to the left of the dinner plate. If you have a butter knife for each guest, it can be placed horizontally on the bread plate.

For cutlery, remember that you’ll always work from the outside in so the dinner fork will be closest to the plate and the salad fork to the left of that. Similarly, the soup spoon will be on the outside and the dinner knife closest to the plate. The dinner knife’s blade should always be facing the plate. Above the plates, start with the dessert fork placed horizontally and its prongs facing the right side and the teaspoon facing the opposite direction above this. If you have a place card, it’s suggested it go at the top of the place setting above the dessert fork and teaspoon, but you can also be creative and incorporate this into the stack of plates whether that be sitting on top of the napkin or even as part of the menu.

As for glassware, set the water glass in the top right corner, above the knife, and the wineglass (either a red or a white wineglass, depending on what you’re serving) to the right of the water glass, set slightly back, on a diagonal. If serving champagne, add this to the left of the wine glass, creating a bit of a triangle shape.

Lastly, don’t forget to add flowers and candles to your centerpiece! Flowers and candles go such a long way in making the dinner feel elevated.

Special thanks to Simply Beautiful Decor for sharing images of their beautiful tabletop pieces for the image and diagram below.