Setting the long table
notes from a Tuscan supper.
On candlelight, borrowed linen and why the best reception photographs are taken before anyone sits down.
The best reception photographs are almost always taken before anyone sits down. The candles are freshly lit, the napkins are still folded, and the light coming through the windows is doing something it will not do again for another year.
At this supper in the hills above Siena, the table ran the length of an old lemon house — thirty metres of borrowed linen, mismatched glassware and wild fennel cut from the lane that morning.
Arrive before the guests
I ask planners for twenty quiet minutes in the room before doors open. It is the only time the details belong entirely to themselves.
“Nobody remembers the centrepieces. Everybody remembers how the room felt when they walked in.”
Light the candles early
Candles look best after they have been burning for a quarter of an hour — the wax softens, the flames settle, and the whole table starts to glow.
