Tiffanni Reidy, a Baltimore interior architect and designer, has a penchant for modern, color-filled, and vintage-inspired designs. She received her Masters in Interior Architecture from The George Washington University, and her undergraduate degree in graphics and photography from Syracuse University, before launching her firm Reidy Creative in 2018. Driven by her passion for supporting local businesses and creating a sense of community in her neighborhood, Tiffanni’s favorite spaces to design are those where folks live and gather in celebration of each other.
Naturally, when it comes to event design, she brings the same ethos to the table. With the holidays coming up, we encourage you to look to some of the designer’s celebrations for inspiration. Today, she shares her top tips for setting a beautiful table:
1. Get creative. Think about using unexpected decor. For this tablescape we used fruit. It was easy to find, and didn’t have to be perfect since we could hide any imperfections with placement.
2. Think about sculpture. Are you using placemats or plates? What shape are those, and what works well to frame the space around them?
3. Choose a color palette and pick things within that. Things that can inform the colors are your plates, any holiday objects you want to display or a table runner that you love.
4. Try to have an interesting moment between each seat. It gives the people joining you something to admire and also is a visual interest when everyone looks around the table.
5. Use layers. You can use a runner over a tablecloth, or florals over a runner to create the first layer. Then build on that with candles and objects of different heights.
6. Include cloth napkins in your design. Even if you aren’t going to use them they add another soft layer to the portion of the table that has hard plates on a hard surface.
7. Don’t forget to add color in with candles. They don’t have to be white. Long tapers (and most other sizes) can be found unscented in various colors.
8. Lighting is everything. If you’re actually going to use your table, and not just photograph it, make sure there’s good lighting for eating, and if you don’t like how your current fixture looks, distract from it with something fun by hanging things from the ceiling over the table.
