At a dinner party the seating is the evening. Lay out the table, try a few arrangements, and settle it before anyone is standing in the doorway holding a bottle.
Free for up to 20 guests and 4 tables. No credit card required.
Most of which happens before you touch anything.
One long table, two rounds, or whatever you are actually doing. The shape decides who can talk to whom, so it comes first.
Table shape, who is opposite whom, and remembering that two of them had an argument in June.
A long table gives everyone two neighbours and someone opposite. Two rounds give everyone five. Lay out the shape you are using and see who can actually reach whom.
Tag guests by how they know each other, so you can see at a glance whether anyone has been seated in a corner of strangers.
Tag it once and it holds while you move everyone else around them.
Vegetarian, allergic, does not drink. It sits on the guest, so you are reading it off the plan while you cook rather than off a text from last Tuesday.
If your guest list is already in a message or a spreadsheet, paste it in rather than typing names twice.
Send a link so the other host sees the same table and the same dietary notes.
Export the table as a PDF to keep beside you while you lay the places, so the seating you decided is the seating that happens.
Fill the table by your groups if you would rather react to something than start at an empty table.
Start with the shape of the table, because it decides everything else. At a long table each guest really only talks to three people: two neighbours and whoever is opposite. At a round table of eight, nearly everyone can join one conversation. Those are different evenings, and it is worth choosing which one you are hosting.
Then place the people who anchor the table. A couple of guests who will talk to anyone, spread out rather than seated together. They are the reason a table does not go quiet, and putting them side by side wastes both of them.
Split couples who see each other every day, and keep together anyone who will struggle otherwise: the guest who knows nobody, the one who is shy, the one who is here because you insisted.
Then stop. A dinner party seating plan is worth twenty minutes and not two hours, and the version you settle on at minute twenty is usually as good as the one at minute ninety.
Twelve names, one table, and the dietary notes in the same place.
When someone cancels on the afternoon, you close the gap rather than redrawing the whole table from memory.
The envelope is genuinely fine for six people. At ten or twelve it stops being fine, because you cannot see the whole table at once and you end up rewriting the list every time you move one person.
Drawing the table takes a minute and makes every change after that free.
A dinner party is well inside the Free plan: up to 20 guests and 4 tables, no card.
The plan takes about twenty minutes and it replaces the ten minutes of standing around at the door deciding out loud, which is the part guests notice.
A long table gives each guest two neighbours and someone opposite, which suits guests who already know each other. Round tables of six to eight keep everyone in one conversation, which suits a mixed group. Lay out both and look at them if you cannot decide.
What table shapes can I use?Usually yes for couples who live together, because they will talk to each other anyway. Keep together anyone who will struggle on their own at a table of strangers.
Next to whichever of your guests talks to anyone, and opposite someone with an obvious thing in common. Not at the end of the table, where they get one neighbour instead of three.
They sit on the guest, so you are reading them off the seating plan while you cook instead of hunting through messages.
How do I record allergies and dietary restrictions?A dinner party fits the Free plan, which covers up to 20 guests and 4 tables without a card.
See pricingLay out the table, put the names down, and settle who sits next to whom before the doorbell goes.
Free for up to 20 guests and 4 tables. No credit card required.