Setting a Spring Table      

Bring the lightness and airiness of spring to your table. It's time to put away those dark colors and freshen up your table settings.

White and pastel colors will lighten your table and your mood. Break out your lace tablecloths if you have them, or use lilac, light yellow, or pale blue placemats to create a softer backdrop. For a simpler, fresher look, put a runner lengthwise down your table, instead of using a tablecloth. If you're using candles as an accent or as part of a centerpiece design, make sure they pick up on the light and airy theme, repeating or complementing the same light colors. Change your candleholders from the wood and brass look of winter to those made of simpler, lighter materials such as glass. For an elegant accent, instead of napkin rings, use coordinating pastel-colored ribbon tied around each napkin. Satin-textured ribbon will give your table settings a sparkling sheen.

Spring is the season of growing things, and spring flowers will give your settings a magical, romantic quality. If you're fortunate enough to live in a place where camellias are plentiful, you can create an eye-stopping centerpiece by arranging camellia blooms in a shallow bowl. The bottom of a glass or crystal cake stand makes an especially elegant setting. Or individualize your place settings by placing a single camellia bloom in a glass bud bowl by each person's place. If you've been clever enough to grow hyacinths indoors, you can also achieve this look by putting a hyacinth in its hyacinth glass by each setting.

Mixed pots of spring bulbs work well as centerpieces for informal settings. Daffodils with crocuses or reticulated irises add a cheery splash to any occasion. It's hard to beat sprigs of bright yellow forsythia, though, for lifting spirits out of the doldrums and announcing that spring is here. Accentuate a simply-set table with a floral centerpiece with floral-patterned napkins placed across each plate or displayed by the side of each setting.

Instead of a centerpiece, simplify by setting flowers in individual small vases or even glasses along a central runner. Place five, seven, or even nine spring flowers of the same type along the length of the runner to create spring magic for your dinner guests. Tulips, daffodils, and roses are especially effective displayed this way. A color combination, such as pink and white or pink and purple tulips, is a splendid accent to a formal table.

If you're feeling whimsical and want your guests to ooh and aah, use a showy centerpiece such as a bouquet of tulips or roses, and extend the theme by weaving a single tulip or rose bloom through each napkin ring, so the bloom lies on top of the napkin by each place setting. Your flower-covered table will look magnificent, and although the cut flowers by each place won't last long, isn't that another quality of spring?

Ephemeral, magical, and beautiful --- all qualities of spring that you can bring to your table so that you and your guests can enjoy the best of the season inside, as well as out.