Mix Your Plates for Memorable Table Settings

Dishes — formal or casual — come in sets of four, eight, 12 and even 24 in stores. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it ought to be.

Says who? After all, where’s the fun in that? Have you ever been to a flea market or garage sale and seen some dishes you just loved, but there were only three, so you passed them up? Truth is, the most memorable table settings I have ever seen were a lovely hodgepodge of patterns and designs — not only the plates, but the flatware and glassware as well.

Ignore the small voice that whines, “You can’t do that!” and follow some simple guidelines to build table settings your family and friends will marvel over — from things you have inherited or found.

The reality is, dishes and glassware break, and flatware disappears into a parallel universe. Does that mean we have to go buy new matching sets? Absolutely not. We just need to adjust our thinking away from sets and into mixing. A collection of plates like this simply begs to be used on an eclectic tabletop.


We tend to put unmatched dishes we fall in love with on our walls. And there is certainly nothing wrong with that. But these same dishes would create a stunning table setting. Your mix could be determined by a color scheme, by an era or, best of all, just because you love them.


When it comes to mixing dishes, the rules are few and far between. It is not like mixing fabrics, for example, where you think of using a linear, a large- and a small-scale pattern, a geometric and a solid.


So how do you start? In my home, colors my husband and I love tend to govern our mixing, as you can see with the beautiful mishmash of dishes that came to us through Mike’s family, and that we augmented with thrift store and garage sale finds. There are Japanese dishes that Grandma Ruth brought back from a trip to Asia in the 1950s. There is Great-Aunt Bessie’s green-bordered formal china. There is a set of antique fish plates that we bought on vacation in Boston three decades ago. The pink girly dishes are from a garage sale. The demitasses are from a thrift store, and the Fitz and Floyd Christmas plates are the only dishes we have ever bought in a set.

You can see that we gravitate toward certain colors, like greens, pinks, blues and reds, and that is totally reflected in our mix of dishes.


For purposes of illustration, I am going to pick from our collection to set a formal table. I’m starting with a lovely piecework tablecloth. Yes, it was a garage sale find. No matter how diligently I iron it, wrinkles remain. That’s OK; by the time we’re done, nobody will notice.


I’m going to use the Christmas plate, which is quite large, as a charger. Great-Aunt Bessie’s china will be my choice for the dinner plate, and Grandma’s scalloped-edge Japanese find will be my salad plates. I could just as easily set the table with all my different patterns of dinner plates and salad plates at once, but tonight I’m feeling little-black-dress conservative.

Mike and I both have silver that has come through our family — none of it complete — so we have added numerous individual pieces that have crossed our path. Tonight I’m mixing my parent’s wedding silver with some mother-of-pearl-handled knives from an antiques store. The crystal is mixed as well; although we started with a complete set, years of breakage have taken their toll, and we have embraced that.


Fresh flowers and linen napkins (sourced from a thrift store, of course) are paired with “madame” and “monsieur” napkin rings that captured our hearts one day. A giant clamshell that I brought home from the shores of Western Samoa helps relax the tone. A small pillar candle nestles in the shell, completing the table. Bring on the food!


But what if you want a more casual, contemporary look? Pier 1 Imports is one of my favorite sources for mixing dishes. It seems to stock not only great colors but very mixable patterns.

Although there are no hard and fast rules, if you’re not sure how to mix, consider combining a floral, a stripe, a solid and a whimsical pattern, as in the combination shown here. Start by mixing three patterns; if you feel brave, go for four or more.


When I want a more casual setting, I will often use a quilt (a modern one, not an antique that I have to baby) as a tablecloth. Then I mix lime-green square plates from Pier 1 with red and white checked napkins under red cabbage-style salad plates and white soup bowls. (Mike makes a to-die-for French onion soup.) Camellias add a smile from the garden at each place setting, while a larger floral arrangement is nestled out of the way. In this setting I let my quilt drive the mix of dishes.


If you are wary of mixing patterns, consider working with the wonderful array of solid colors found in Fiestaware. Just be bold enough to mix up your colors; don’t keep them all the same.


If a lot of color is not your thing, that’s OK — you can still mix. These charming chicken plates strut their stuff on the sage-green majolica dinner plates, and the linen runner is the perfect complement.


Check out this muted palette. Soft-colored Christmas plates are mixed with antique china in a similar hue, with gold chargers providing the background. The effect is serene and beautiful.


Here the crystal is mixed, remarkably and wonderfully, and includes tones that do not appear in the dishes — all of which makes this setting so unexpected and stunning.


If you have sets of dishes you love and love to use, no problem. Consider setting them on a colorful tablecloth like this one. If you have aqua glassware, so much the better.

I hope this encourages you to dig through your attic, to haunt garage sales and to let your table settings share your story.

More: Luxurious Holiday Table Settings for Less

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