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If you’re having a larger group of people and are feeling creative (and have the time), you may even wish to make table decorations and/or place settings for each of your guests. It also means you can control who sits next to who! It’s great fun to make name tags and people love taking them home. Be as creative as you wish. Below are some of my favourite table-decorating ideas:

* Everyone loves place cards! Try old-fashioned packing labels with the guest’s name written on and tied around a napkin or the base of a wine glass, or even pierced through onto a satay stick. Or if you’re feeling ambitious, make cookies or biscuits for each guest with their name written in icing or chocolate.

* If you don’t have napkin rings, just tie a pretty piece of ribbon around your napkins, perhaps in different colours for each napkin. To jazz it up further, you can tie on fresh rosemary and/or bread sticks.

* For a really special event, place mini wrapped presents on each place, tied up with twine or ribbon and with a name tag.

* For a seaside theme try candles in oyster or scallop shells or sand in the bottom of glass candle holders or pretty glass jars with tea lights; pebbles, slate or driftwood pieces with guest’s names in chalk; shells on the table.

* For a holiday splash, place Christmas baubles in little glasses or shallow tumblers around the table; spray some holly lightly with glitter, place small branches in a flower vase with baubles hanging off (place sand in the bottom to keep the branches in place). You can write guests’ names on bay, holly or ivy leaves with gold or silver pen.

* At Easter, you can try a similar trick-from small branches hang painted eggs. You can also spray the branches silver or gold. You could even do a mini version with quail’s eggs! Place mini pastel-coloured Easter eggs or little chicks around the table.

* In autumn, place pumpkins and squashes in groups on the table and/or outside the front door.

* For national holidays, place little flags at each setting or down the centre of the table.

* For your floral arrangements, try not to have one enormous bouquet in the middle of your table. Instead, make smaller arrangements in lots of small glass holders of different sizes so your guests can see over them. Or try small terracotta pots of herbs or little flowering plants, or put miniature bulbs, such as bluebells or narcissus, in a pot or glass vase for a temporary display. Avoid overly scented flowers, which may overpower your food.