At a dining table, there are many things that you’ll need to think about besides the menu. An important consideration is where the guests should sit, as this could decide whether or not your guests enjoy themselves or network successfully. There are some basic rules to guide your decision.

◇Ask guests of honor to sit in order. If you invite a guest of honor, for instance, a boss, an elderly relative, a visiting superstar, there are etiquette rules regarding their seating.

◇Try to make the people who have common interests sit together. This is the most useful starting point.

◇In general, you should try to seat families together and work colleagues together. But if you know people don’t get along, try not seating them together. It is worth breaking tradition to have a pressure free event.

◇Avoid guests of mixing age sit together. Young children should sit with their parents. Older children can sit with their parents or on a table together.

◇Try not to seat all the people who don’t fit on other tables together. It is probably better to separate such guests evenly.

◇A female guest of honor is usually seated on the right side of the host, while a male guest of honor is usually seated on the right side of the hostess.

◇Try to seat even numbers of males and females in a table. It is a tradition to alternate male-female-male-female guests in some cultures. Some business dinners are seated male-male-female-female for variety.

◇Try to avoid seating guests on the same table as ex-partners, unless you are sure this is OK. Keep in mind that there are 4 corners in every room.

◇If there are speeches or announcements, make sure the people giving them are not seated with their back facing anyone.

◇Try to seat pregnant, elderly and disabled guests and guests with small children where they can go to washrooms and use other facilities conveniently. Don’t make them sit at tables that are going to be taken away to make space after the dinner.

◇Older guests will generally have poorer hearing and vision. Try to seat them where they can see and hear any speeches. Do not sit them near to loud music, they won’t appreciate it. Place children’s tables in the least favorable locations, they have better hearing and won’t have much interest in the speeches anyway.

As for the table layout it will be determined by the shape of the tables your venue supplies and how the tables are best arranged to make the room look balanced for the number of guests to be seated. There are mainly round tables and rectangular tables. The figures below give you a sketchy idea of the venue size required, according to the number of guests and the type of seating.

The basic principle of table arrangement is to offer opposite ends of the table to the hosts and/or the guests of honor. If there are two hosts, you should consider seating yourselves at opposite ends of the table so that you can cater to every guest. Alternatively, you could ask the guest of honor to sit at the opposite end of the host—a female guest of honor could sit opposite the female host and a male guest of honor could sit opposite the male host. The remaining host can be seated amid the rest of the group or next to the guest of honor. Remember, the hosts should try to stay apart as it is the hosts’ duty to ensure the guests are happy.

◇Dinner Procedure

There are several aspects of differences between Chinese dinner and Occidental dinner, which include dinner procedure, way of serving, structure of dishes etc. Normally, the procedure of Occidental dinner is as follows:

◇Appetizer/starter: Usually Occidental appetizer is assorted cold dishes. Main ingredients include vegetables, fruits, seafood or meat.

◇Bread: It is most usually eaten with the hands, or sometimes with a knife and fork. It can be eaten by itself or with another, usually less compact food. Bread may be put into a liquid (such as gravy, olive oil, or sardine p??té), or serve to enclose any number of varieties of meat, cheese, vegetables or condiments to make the ubiquitous sandwich.

◇Soup: Traditionally, soup is divided into two broad categories—clear soup and thick soup. The dinner doesn’t begin until the soup is served. When you eat soup, remember to move it gently with a spoon or simply wait to let your soup cool.

◇Main course: A main course is the special or primary dish in a meal containing several courses. The main course is usually the heaviest, heartiest, and most complex or substantial dish on a menu. Usually meat or fish is the main ingredient; in vegetarian meals, the main course sometimes tries to be a meat course. For those reasons the main course is sometimes called the “meat course”.The most typical main course would be fillet beef or chicken or fish.

◇Desserts: Dessert is typically served at the end of a meal, usually containing sweet food such as cakes, ice-cream, fruits, but sometimes a strongly-flavored one, such as some cheeses.

◇Hot beverages: Hot beverage is served after the table is cleared, such as coffee, black tea, hot chocolate, etc. This is normally the very last course.