Table Seating Etiquette

The reason seating arrangements is worth thinking about in advance, is that you'll be asked the question, “Is there any place in particular you'd like us to sit?” and your mind will have a hard time switching gears. 

Diplomatic careers have foundered on bad decisions about who should sit where, but with six people you've got nothing to worry about. Because couples often go through life welded together at the hip, it might make for a more interesting dynamic not to have the same two people who breakfast together every morning of their mortal lives seated together at a dinner, as well. 

Convention likes to have a man seated next to a woman seated next to a man seated next to a woman. But since couples no longer come exclusively in those pairings and since your table might not conform to three of one, three of the other, best to seat people for conversational possibility rather than atavistic allegiance.

The reason it's worth thinking about in advance, is that you'll be asked the question, “Is there any place in particular you'd like us to sit?” just as you're draining the pasta or taking the muffins out of there tin, and your mind will have a hard time switching gears.

You want the talkers and the listeners fairly evenly distributed around the table. You probably don't want the three men who were college roommates absorbed in a tête to tête to tête, at one end of the table. Nor do you want the shy cousin who invited you to dinner when you first moved to town, to have only you to talk to throughout the meal, the cocktail hour having pretty much exhausted your news of the family. So say firmly, “Yes, I'd like Marjorie on my right, Fritz on my left, and if Betty would go to the other end of the table, the rest of you can sit where you like.” — From 1993's “Rising to the Occasion”

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette Above the Salt

A royal salt holder — In medieval times, due to its scarcity, salt was extremely expensive and only affordable by those in the higher ranks of society. At that time, royalty and nobility sat at the 'high table' while the commoner servants sat at lower, trestle tables. Salt was placed in the center of the high table. Only those of rank had access to the salt. Those less favored, and of lesser rank on the lower tables, were below, or beneath, the salt.

The proposed visit of the Infanta Eulalia of Spain to this country has given rise to a pretty exhibition of Court etiquette. She and her husband, Prince Antony, were to be the guests of the United States government, but in proffering hospitality, the mistake was made of intimating that the Duke of Veragua would be included in the company. This was quite too much for Spanish notions of propriety. 

A person of royal blood to sit with a mere nobleman, and have the salt between them on equal terms — never! A Monarchical guest must take separate treatment to sustain her dignity; to hobnob with an inferior is tantamount to insult. So the Infanta gets out of this disparaging predicament by undertaking to pay her own expenses, an independent course which may grieve this country the less inasmuch as Congress has not appropriated a dime for her august entertainment. — New York Herald, 1883

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Diplomatic Table Seating Etiquette

Original seating chart for State Dinner Honoring HRH The Duke of Gloucester, in 1934 — At diplomatic dinners, titles are abbreviated, “H. E. [for His Excellency] the Norwegian Ambassador,” “The Secretary of Defense.” Dinner partners refer to these gentlemen as “Mr. Ambassador” and “Mr. Secretary” in direct conversation, by the way. Note that there are absolutely no women at this dinner in 1934!

The seating at formal dinners is the same as that at informal ones at which guests are present. Host and hostess are seated more or less opposite each other, with the hostess preferably near the entrance through which the formal place card. Monogram, in this case, in gold with matching border. 

Name of guest is handwritten. To the right of the host is placed the honored woman guest. If a young engaged girl is to be feted, for example, she is given this place despite the fact that older women are present. If among the guests there is one woman who has come some distance and is rarely a visitor to the household, it is she who would be given this place of honor. 

Ordinarily, among people who see each other frequently, the hostess places to the host's right any woman who has obvious seniority over the rest or, if none has, any woman guest who will bring out her husband conversationally if he needs special incentive. 

To her own right the hostess places the husband of the guest of honor, if there is one, the man who has come the greatest distance and is an infrequent visitor to the household or a man who may be a little shy or difficult conversationally. To the host's left is placed the next most important woman guest and to the hostess' left, the next most important man guest.

At a long banquet table host and hostess need not sit at opposite ends but may sit across from each other at the center. The same seating of guests of honor maintains, however.

At each place will be a guest's name. The cards are usually plain white with beveled edges gilded, although in a household using a heraldic device the host's full coat of arms may be embossed in gold or the crest alone without the motto may be used. 

A widow or an unmarried woman may properly use only a lozenge for menu and place cards. Place card names are written “Mrs. Roberts,” “Miss Sweeney,” “Mr. Prudhomme” at formal dinners. 

At diplomatic dinners titles are abbreviated,  “H.E. [for His Excellency] the Norwegian Ambassador,” “The Secretary of Defense.” Dinner partners refer to these gentlemen as “Mr. Ambassador” and “Mr. Secretary” in direct conversation, by the way. — Amy Vanderbilt, 1952

🍽️Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia