Before the First Course, the Dining Room Asks Who Sits Where

People who plan gatherings for a living have set out the conventions for placing guests at a dressed-up dinner table. This part of entertaining is finished before anyone rings the bell: the place cards, the order around the table, and the choice of who will spend the evening talking with whom. In a house built for hosting, such as a long table in a Palm Beach dining room or a candlelit room off a Hamptons terrace, that arrangement matters as much to the night as the menu. Their guidance treats the plan as something worth working out chair by chair.

With reporting from Elle Decor.