To ensure a successful evening guests should be correctly seated. This is not easily achieved and can challenge the sensibility of the hostess; specially if the guests are equally important and have more or less the same age. It is necessary to pay close attention when choosing the seating positions. Guests that have sympathy for each other or a lot in common should be seated closely. Give it a moments thought when compiling the guest list and before they arrive so as not to get confused. If you have uncertainties about the order of priority of some guests, it will be better to invite them in two different occasions.

The order that people fill the seats depends on their age, social status and sex: the male host should have the most important female guest to his right, and to his left the next most important; the female host should do the same with the male guests. The other guests should alternate male-female. If two guests have the same importance, preference should be given to the older one.

If a female host invites a couple she would sit the woman at her right, whereas if the host is male he would sit the most important woman opposite to him, as if she were the hostess. It is important to remember that foreign guests have priority over the others.

These simple considerations resolve the delicate problem of assigning the seating positions at the table. If the hostess has any doubts she should rely on her common sense, and with discretion and diplomacy should decide to follow these considerations or break the rules for the sake of her guest’s own ease.