How to Set a Formal Dining Table in Memphis
Does the thought of hosting a formal dinner make you break out in a nervous sweat?
Learning how to set a formal dining table is stressful, especially if you’re unsure of the proper order of forks, plates, and glasses. The good news is that you no longer have to worry about learning how to set a formal dining table for an event, as we’ve created this quick guide to help you get an understanding of the proper placement for all of your dinner dishes.
Keep reading to learn more!
Getting Started
To get started setting a formal dining table, you’ll want to together all of the supplies that you need. This includes:
- A tablecloth
- Chargers
- Dinner plates
- Soup bowls
- Salad plates
- Bread plates
- Napkins
- Salad forks
- Dinner forks
- Knives
- Soup spoons
- Butter knives
- Dessert spoons
- Water glasses
- Red wine glasses
- White wine glasses
While this long list can tend to be extremely overwhelming, gathering all of your supplies before you start trying to set the table will make the entire process a lot easier.
Prepping the Table
Before stepping into getting plates placed on the table, you’ll want to lay an ironed tablecloth out on the table. Ironing at the table cloth before laying it on the table will make it much smoother and neater in appearance. After you lay the tablecloth down, be sure to set a charger at each seat.
Laying out Dishes
Once there has been a charger placed in each seat, there should be a soup bowl place in the center of each charger. To the top left of the charger, you will want to leave a bread plate. On the left side of the charger, lay a cloth napkin.
Positioning of Utensils
On the charger’s left side, you’ll first want to first place your salad fork on the outside of the charger. The dinner fork will be placed on the inside, closest to the charger.
To the charger’s right, you will want to place a knife right next to the charger. Be sure that the blade of the knife is facing inwards, towards the charger. After this, you’ll place your soup spoon next to the knife.
As an additional tip, you should be sure to have all of your flatware evenly spaced from each other. A good rule to keep in the back of your head is Too Faced each utensil half of an inch away from each other. Plus, the bottoms of the utensil should be aligned with the bottom of the charger.
Next, you want to place a butter knife horizontally, pointing inwards to the top of the bread plate. Above the charger, you want to lay down a dessert spoon with the handle of the dessert spoon facing to the right.
Glasses
The glasses will be the last name placed on the table. Above the knife that you placed, put down the water glass. 3/4 of an inch away, you should place the water glass. Lastly, the red wine glass will go slightly above the white wine glass.
Understanding How to Set a Formal Dining Table
We hope that this guide helped you to gather a better understanding of how to set a formal dining table. Creating a three-course meal for your friends and family to formally enjoy can be stressful, but thankfully setting the table will be a lot easier!
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