Master the Art of Seating: Etiquette Expert’s #1 Rule for a Flawless Dinner Party!

This year, it’s your turn to host the New Year’s Eve celebration. With a large family like yours, designing a seating chart is a must. In doing so, you consider the relationships and possible conflicts among your guests to ensure smooth interactions and a pleasant atmosphere at the table. Once everyone is properly seated, you then think about where you and your spouse should sit. However, you should have actually started with this. An expert explains why.

In her book The Magic of Manners: How Good Etiquette Leads to Happiness, published by Hachette Pratique, Florence Cane, an etiquette expert and consultant for hospitality leaders, emphasizes the importance of the seating chart. “The seating plan is crucial no matter the nature of your dinner,” she stresses. Among the golden rules for creating a seating plan, there’s one that is often forgotten: the proper placement of the hosts. It’s common to place ourselves last, finding a spot at the end of the table with our spouse. This is a mistake! “The host and hostess should never sit next to each other, she corrects us. You and your husband should sit at the center of the table, facing each other, as the seating arrangement revolves around you.” Placing yourselves should therefore be the very first step. Next, consider the guests of honor: “There are two places of honor, to the right of the hostess for a man and to the right of the host for a woman,” the expert adds.

These honored guests might include someone who has traveled a long distance to attend, a nephew who is about to graduate, or a grandmother celebrating her 80th birthday within the year, she illustrates. Once you’ve made these placements, you can then think about the relationships of the other guests!