Etiquetteer got excited yesterday with the news that March 20 was National Placecard Day, as declared by The Punctilious Mr. P’s Place Card Company. The coronavirus pandemic has kept Sensible People from entertaining at home. But when we can really start giving dinner parties again, it will be useful to remember how to deploy these Helpful Bits of Paper for a Smoothly Run Dinner.
In this century we think of placecards only in terms of very large affairs — wedding banquets, class reunions, charity balls, etc. — but they are just as helpful in your own home. Placecards help your company feel comfortable. Everyone wants to know there’s a place for them to sit down. And you not only want your guests to feel comfortable, you want to spark convivial conversation by seating your company compatibly. Placecards allow you to do this without guiding everyone personally to his or her own place. That will help you feel more comfortable and less bossy.
After World War II, when all home entertaining became less formal, use of placecards also started to decline. Lillian Eichler noted in Today’s Etiquette even in 1940 that “Places are no longer marked with gilt-edged cards . . . Many of the old elaborate customs have been dropped.” But ten years later Emily Post Herself had far from dropped instructions to include them. Dorothy Draper in her madcap Entertaining Is Fun! describes them as a necessity. “Is there anything in the world more agonizing than to stand in a huddle at the dining-room door while you’re hostess fumbles for a scrap of paper and her glasses?” Mrs. Draper’s delight in placecards even suggested that they be applied to buffet seating when TV trays or tiny wooden tables needed to be enlisted for guests on the sofa*.
Traditional placecards are of thick white or cream bristol board bordered in gold. They could be special ordered with a monogram or a crest, but it would have to be a legitimate family crest you were entitled to use. Otherwise you’d be pegged as parvenus. Letitia Baldrige pointed out in New Manners for New Times in 2001 “Some social climbers go to the extreme of fabricating a family crest that too many guests know is fake, so it really doesn’t serve its purpose!” But placecards come in all sorts of novel and delightful designs, and not just the ones from The Punctilious Mr. P (but theirs are truly wonderful). Etiquetteer is inclined to save the severe gold borders for the Most Formal of Occasions.
Mrs. Baldrige also provides the degree of (in)formality appropriate. Young Etiquetteer always thought that a placecard had to have honorifics and last names, e.g. “Mrs. Smith” or “Professor Pomp.” Not so! That’s what’s done at formal dinners, which would include all business and diplomatic functions. But at informal parties, just first names are Perfectly Proper unless not everyone knows everyone else. Then add last names {“Paula Smith,” “Peter Pomp”). The one big exception is when you have two people with the same last name; then you must include first and last names to prevent confusion.
However you write someone’s name on a placecard, it must be clear. We all love swoopy calligraphy, but if it can’t be read from three feet away after one cocktail, its purpose is defeated.
In this century it’s no longer obligatory to seat your guests boy/girl, though many still do. The one inviolable rule, however, is that spouses not sit next to each other when dining out. You go out to see other people, not the ones you live with! Spouses who are uneasy about this — and Etiquetteer remembers one who reacted with Absolute Fury at a charity ball — need to remember that dinner parties are their chance to experiment with new people, new ideas, and sometimes new cuisines. If you don’t end up having a good time, you don’t have to return. Otherwise . . . suck it up, Buttercup!
*Etiquetteer does love Mrs. Draper, but — with some of her psychedelic color combinations and outlandish suggestions (for instance, that the children will be delighted to help out) — Etiquetteer sometimes wonders if she wasn’t under the influence of a Banned Substance.