Every printed fall tableware line is the same four leaves in the same four colors, and by the third party of the season you have seen it enough. The alternative is sitting right there in a range of 646 solid color items, and it is both more flexible and better looking.
Solids also have a practical advantage. They do not announce a holiday, so one set of plates runs from a late October harvest dinner to Thanksgiving to a December gathering without looking out of place.
The rule: two colors plus one accent
Before the palettes, the constraint that makes them work. Two colors carry the table. One accent appears in a single place, usually the metal, and nowhere else.
Three full colors plus a metallic is where tables go wrong. It stops reading as a scheme and starts reading as whatever was in the cupboard. If you find yourself adding a fourth, take one out instead.
The solid color tableware range runs the same colors across plates, napkins, cups, cutlery, table rolls and skirting, which is what makes a two color scheme actually achievable rather than aspirational.
Burgundy, ivory and gold
The dressy one. This is the palette for a sit down dinner, and it is the one that looks most considered for the least effort.
Burgundy does the heavy lifting: sturdy style 8.75 inch paper dinner plates, 10.25 inch banquet plates for a larger meal, and two ply beverage napkins. Ivory goes underneath as the table surface, either an ivory plastic table roll or ivory table skirting at 29 inches by 14 feet if you are covering a banquet table.
Gold is the accent and it appears once. Glittering gold assorted plastic cutlery, or a gold metallic table skirt, but not both. The sequined burgundy table runner is the other way to spend the accent, which is arguably the better choice because it sits in the center where everyone sees it.
Ivory and burgundy together read as autumn without any orange at all, which is useful if your room already has a lot of warm wood.
Pumpkin spice orange and chocolate brown
The casual one, and the most straightforwardly fall of the three.
Pumpkin spice orange is a muted, slightly dusty orange rather than a bright one, which is exactly why it works on a table. It comes as 8.75 inch sturdy dinner plates, 6.75 inch dessert plates, two ply luncheon and beverage napkins, and 9 ounce hot and cold paper cups. That last one matters if cider is involved.
Chocolate brown goes down as the surface. The brown plastic table roll is 100 feet, which is more than any home needs and exactly right for a hall, a classroom or a long buffet line.
Skip the accent entirely on this one. Orange and brown is already warm enough, and adding gold pushes it toward Thanksgiving when you may want it to stay generic autumn. If you want contrast, use ivory napkins rather than a metal.
Hunter green, black and gold
The one most people do not think of, and the one I would pick for an evening party.
Autumn is not only orange. Hunter green with black is a deep forest palette that reads as late season without any harvest imagery at all, and it photographs far better under lamplight than orange does.
Hunter green sturdy 8.75 inch dinner plates and 10.25 inch banquet plates, with black velvet three ply napkins. Black velvet is a true deep black rather than a gray black, and the three ply weight has an actual cloth-like hand to it, which is the single biggest upgrade available in disposable tableware.
Gold as the one accent: glittering gold cutlery, or a gold metallic rectangular tablecover under everything. Green and black and gold also slides straight into December with no changes, which no orange palette can claim.
Plies and sizes, briefly
- Three ply napkins for a seated meal, two ply for a buffet, value friendly for a crowd where napkins get used once and dropped
- 10.25 inch banquet plates when there is a main and two sides, 8.75 inch dinner plates for everything else
- 6.75 inch dessert plates for pie, appetizers and the kids' table
- Count two napkins per guest, always, regardless of ply
- Case quantities run 240 to 1200 depending on the item, so above about thirty guests cases are the sane format
One honest limitation: solid colors give you nothing to look at on the plate itself. If the food is beige, a solid table can read flat. Fix it with the centerpiece and the runner rather than by adding a print, and borrow texture from the tissue garlands and fans in the Thanksgiving decorations collection, which come in the same color pairs.
For a full table where printed pieces do belong, the broader Thanksgiving range fills in the centerpieces and serving items on top of whichever palette you landed on.
Building a palette this week? PARTY10 gives you 10% off, one redemption per customer, so settle on the colors before you order rather than after.
