Inviting more guests than your table fits

malky800

Wed, May 11 2011, 11:14 am

My table fits 8 and my family b'h is 5. When I invited anyone with 3 or more people we need to squish and the food takes up the whole table.

We love having guests but we were wondering from the other side, is it proper to invite adults when they'll have to squish to fit?

(No, there isn't room to bring another table into the dining room either.)

zaq

Wed, May 11 2011, 11:45 am

Depends on how close they are to you and each other. Close family is more likely to tolerate squishing than casual acquaintances. You also have to know what kind of people they are. If they're easygoing overall they're more likely to accept squishing than if they're the type with broomsticks up their backs. Plus, you can't very well squish a member of one gender up against a member of the other unless they're immediate family, you can't really squoosh husbands and wives together b/c of TH, and frum brothers and sisters may also object to being squooshed up against each other.

You can only do what you can do. If your table sat 10, you'd still feel bad that you can't accommodate your best friend who has a family of 6. I do think it's not quite pleasant to invite people and force them to sit very squooshed, though it depends what you mean by squooshed. If you have wide dining room chairs and the chairs are one against the next, the chairs are squooshed but the people aren't. Consider getting narrower folding chairs so you can either fit in an extra chair or three or there is space between the chairs. If you're already using the narrowest available chairs and there's no space to fit a dollar bill between them, that's probably too much unless you're all close family.

Here's another idea: serve buffet-style.

zaq

Wed, May 11 2011, 3:13 pm

excellent idea, cm! another is to buy a sheet of plywood cut to be larger than your table but that still fits in the room. Just plop that baby over your existing table, throw a larger cloth over it, et voila, more seating. You may want to secure the plywood by adding short pieces of 2 by 4 on the underside of the board just beside the edge of table on all 4 sides, so the board can't slide around.

Aribenj

Wed, May 11 2011, 9:14 pm

I second adding a kids table somewhere else.

Also, what if you turn whatever other surface you have in the room (coffee table, mantel, etc) into a makeshift buffet so you can put all the food there and then it's not so squished.

Or you could sit in a T (the table being the long part of the T with a smaller table placed perpendicular to it on top. Depending on how much space you have, you could fit at least another 5 more ppl.

Or you could sit 2 people at each head of the table (adds 2 seats)