How many tables, chairs and place settings for X guests?

It is the first question on every call: "there will be about three hundred of us, what do I need?" The answer comes down to a handful of ratios, learned in the field rather than from a catalogue. Here they are, with the reasoning behind them.

Seating: always 5 % more

One seat per guest, plus five per cent. This is not sales caution: there are always unannounced companions, a child who grows up between the invitation and the day, a driver you sit down. An empty chair costs almost nothing; a guest left standing through the speeches remembers the reception for that reason.

For a cocktail reception the rule changes entirely: seating for a third of the guests is enough. Nobody sits down at the same time, and filling the room with chairs kills the circulation that makes the format worthwhile.

Tables: ten settings, rarely twelve

The round table of ten is the standard in Togo, and for good reason: at twelve, guests across from one another stop talking and service struggles to get through. Divide your guest count by ten and round up.

Add one tablecloth per table, plus one for every sixty guests: buffets, the head table and the gift table use them up without anyone thinking of it at order time.

Tableware: two and a half plates per diner

For a served dinner — starter, main, shared dessert — count 2.5 plates and 3 pieces of cutlery per diner. The half comes from overlapping courses: you never clear fast enough to reuse a plate within the same evening.

Always add 10 % for breakage. This is not a seller's margin: out of six hundred pieces of cutlery, a dozen or so do not come back intact, and that is normal.

Glassware: the most underestimated item

Two and a half glasses per guest for a reception that ends after dessert. Three and a half if the evening runs on — a guest changes glass when changing drink, and nobody finds their own again after the first dance.

This is the item most often underestimated in requests, and the one that triggers the most urgent same-day calls.

Floor area: 1.3 m² per seated guest

Under a marquee or indoors, count 1.3 m² per seated guest, circulation and service included. For a cocktail reception, 0.9 m² is enough.

That figure includes service aisles: a room calculated to the last centimetre forces waiting staff to squeeze behind guests' backs, and the meal suffers from it more than from any detail of the decoration.

Sound: two output points beyond 500

Below one hundred and fifty guests, the room's ambient sound system is often enough. Between 150 and 500, one system matched to the room. Beyond that, two output points beat one more powerful system: the sound carries without overwhelming the front tables.

What these figures do not tell you

They give an order of magnitude, not a floor plan. The venue, the shape of the room, the running order, a children's area or a caterer's corner all change the layout — sometimes a great deal.

That is exactly what the quote is for: we take your estimate, test it against the venue, and hand you a firm inventory. The calculator above prepares that conversation; it does not replace it.