Host notes
Picking a metal for the table
A charger is a rim of metal around the plate, and the whole of its job is done in the two inches you can see. That makes the finish the only decision worth making about it.
The three finishes
We press chargers in gold, silver and rose gold. Gold reads warm and heavy and takes candlelight well. Silver reads cool and formal and disappears politely under white china. Rose gold sits between them and pulls pink out of anything near it, which is either the point or a problem depending on the cloth.
What sits with what
- Gold with rose gold: two warm metals, and they read as a deliberate pair rather than a clash.
- Silver on its own: cleanest with a white or ivory cover and white china.
- Gold with silver: an accident unless you alternate them all the way round the table and mean it.
- Any metal with a dark cover: the rim is the only bright thing on the table, so it carries more weight than you expect. Go a size down in decoration elsewhere.
Look at it under the room light
Metal finishes photograph one way and behave another. A hall lit warm will pull gold further toward brass and flatten silver to gray; daylight through a marquee does the opposite. If the venue has a light you can stand under, hold the plate under it before you commit the whole room.
The plates
What goes under them
A charger is not a plate, it is a frame, and the frame needs something behind it. A cover in a shade that contrasts with the metal does more for the setting than a second metal does. There are 23 shades in this catalog for that reason.