Place Settings

Alright, last time I talked about my table cover plans, so this time, I'm going to talk about my specific table settings.  I wouldn't mind feedback here, so if anybody actually follows my blog, please leave a comment about what you think!  Since I'm on a budget, I'm probably going to go with paper plates and napkins, and plastic cutlery.  But that doesn't mean I can't be picky about WHICH paper plates I pick.

I'm thinking about doing something different on the tables with orange overlay cloths versus the ones with the white tablecloths.  Mostly because I don't think orange on orange is attractive, but that a table with no orange at all would be boring.  So for the white tables, I'm using orange square plates as a base, and on the orange tables, I'll be using silver.

On top of these, I'll have a smaller, white square plate (dessert plate) centered on them, for a nice, clean sort of look.  And on top of those, I'll have these ornamental scroll napkins (they come in both silver and orange; I'll do orange over the silver plates and silver over the orange plates) folded in some sort of neat way.

As for how the napkins will be folded, I'm rather fond of the stack fold, which I think would look very clean and wouldn't be too hard to do.  I could also probably tuck some clear plastic silverware inside the folds, which would hide the cheapest looking items.  I might also get some of those cheap throwaway chopsticks, since I'll be doing Asian food for my guests.  Still, it wouldn't be polite to expect everybody to use chopsticks, especially for the cake, so I'll have a nice big bin of silverware on the side, if nothing else.

Finally, to top off the look, I'm going to perch a paper crane on top of the napkins, as a favor to our guests.  I'm not doing assigned seating, though I might do table assignments just to make sure that we don't have any folks who would really rather not sit together forced together.  By the way, all of these plates and napkins come from Party City, which is likely not the cheapest option, but I like that I can actually go to a shop and see what I'm buying.