How To Drape Table Linen

A basic component of your table, tablecloth drapery plays an essential part in setting up the style and aesthetic overlay of your reception.

Like a primer to makeup – the foundation to a seamless finish – the secondary steps of layering a table depends completely on the cloth you use, and how you drape it.

Textiles

Chic or romantic, rustic or organic, there’s a textile choice to suit your style. Long gone are are day when a your only option was a starched white linen rectangular sheet with drapery itself taking on a whole new meaning. Think, open weave linens with a textured raw edge, gossamer, damask, cotton and silk in every shape and form from the fluid and sculptural to the minimalist and neat.

Color and contrast

Colored tablecloths add their our quiet drama through contracts, mood and ambience. From subtle greys to the decadence of black, and watery blue, color is an important part of your preliminary textile decisions.

Draping Styles

Organic and sculptural

Looking to the beautiful styling of Silk and Willow – whose table cloth re-invention is nothing short of inspiring – we love ruched, organic, fluid forms – cloth woven down a table as a sculptural masterpiece. Perfect for an oceanic or rustic garden wedding, look to elements of subtle, water-washed colour to accent the setting.

One Long Table Runner

For a rustic reception, one styled in an orchid, olive grove or vineyard, we love an exposed wooden table with one long length running along the centre, oversized and fluid at the ends. Working, however, for any surface texture you want on display – think, marble, glass, stone, darkly stained wood – this style translates to inner city spaces with your one caveat being sharper edges and a more refined, structured approach to suit a chic sensibility.

Traditional White

You really can’t go wrong with this classic. Look to thick cotton and damask, freshly pressed and folded at the ends. Cloth lengths should not exceed the lengths of the table legs, or if so, done deliberately with a eye for careful draping and an awareness of any potential trip hazards.

Oversized and Fluid

Loving raw fluid silk and the oversized opulence of an almost oceanic cascade of cloth, fabric length can be used to run along and over tables and even woven through the back of chairs. Perfect for a ceremony set near an undulating tide (where landscape and cloth mirror each other to exaggerated effect) or elsewhere as a gesture of both the ethereal and the romantic.

Barely-There

Suited to the superfine and light-weight fabrics such as gossamers cloth and very delicate silks, barely the tablecloths are a ghosting, ambient alternative to other, heavier versions and suited to wintery or very oceanic, nautical wedding spaces.