The truth behind a snaked table
CREATING SOMETHING UNEXPECTED
In a world where we are exposed to so many visuals, whether real or AI, it can feel like you’ve seen it all. However, have you ever sat at a snaked table? We realised recently that despite designing snaked tables many times over, we have never actually sat at one as guests. Our first snaked table floorplan was back in 2021, a continuous snake at the glorious Heckfield – it curved around the whole room providing one table for guests. The reaction to this room really showed us the power of an unusual floorplan. From there, we’ve worked on many designs including a dinner with four long snaked designs either side of the central bar at the V&A and we even returned to Heckfield earlier this year to build another continuous snake layout.
Guests really seem to love the idea of a floorplan which isn’t a standard room of rounds but is a little different to long tables. It’s fun, a little different and really social.
YOUR RESTRAINTS
The main restraint with this design is space. They do take up more space. You need to ensure your catering team are happy with the design as well because service being great is key. We have found that adding in long trestle tables as well as the curved does allow for slightly more flexibility space wise. Equally, by adding in the longs you can create a non-uniform design which weaves all the way round the room.
CUSTOM VS STOCK
In the past, we’ve used a mix of hired tables as well as custom built. Of course there’s a huge cost difference here. In the UK there are now some great options you can hire meaning that it’s much easier and unless you have a very specific design, it tends to be the case that you can get away without having to do a custom build.
THE GREAT LINEN DEBATE
We spend many hours talking about the best ways to cloth our designs. Over the years we have mastered how to cloth without creating too much bulk in the design. A naturally pleated design looks wonderful when using stock linens. There is also the option to have linen custom made which fits perfectly to your shape giving a beautifully smooth top to the table.
IS THERE A GOOD SEAT AND A BAD SEAT?
We don’t think so. Depending on your event and the type of event, we’d advise on how to seat guests. Those sitting in the inner side of the curve, get a great position to talk to lots of guests – this works really well for a client event for example where you may have hosts. Equally a bride and groom, may wish to sit on an outer curve so that they can see across the room easily. The stock options are narrower so we generally don’t advise to have a guest at the end, although we do have a good solution to get round this – one you’ll spot if you look at our latest Heckfield design.
THE COST
There is a perception that snaked tables are hugely expensive and we’re here to say that actually, that’s not necessarily true. Yes, if you custom build the tabletops or have the linen custom altered it will be, but you can create incredible designs using standard tables and linens so it really doesn’t have to be at all. Marginally more expensive but not prohibitively at all.
If you're looking for an exciting floorplan and event design, please do get in touch.
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