Are you having an affair? Styling tips for the dinner table

· Build dinner around a single centrepiece. “Stick photos from recent trips together on wooden skewers and place them in a small fishbowl at the dining table to initiate a fun conversation,” suggests Kothari. · To celebrate long-time friends who’ve moved past their scrounging days, make it personal, Kothari says. Print your friends’ profile pics or old photos as place cards. Or pipe their names onto cupcakes or pie slices. ·Create a personalised menu, making up names of dishes and drinks that are significant to the friendship and the memories you’ve all made together. Think of an anecdote that runs with the gang or a nickname that’s stuck even though no one remembers what it was for.

· To celebrate long-time friends who’ve moved past their scrounging days, make it personal, Kothari says. Print your friends’ profile pics or old photos as place cards. Or pipe their names onto cupcakes or pie slices.

·Create a personalised menu, making up names of dishes and drinks that are significant to the friendship and the memories you’ve all made together. Think of an anecdote that runs with the gang or a nickname that’s stuck even though no one remembers what it was for.

· Hosting dinner for colleagues, and seniors at work means there’s little room for error. Don’t go overboard, Kothari says. No overwhelming floral arrangement, just a simple centrepiece that can be put aside when needed. Or succulents or fresh monstera or ivy cuttings sourced from the house plants.

· “Shop your home instead of sourcing externally,” Kothari says. Use curios and memorabilia like little wooden or metal boxes, votives or vases from around the house.

· Go with classic cutlery and ensure there’s enough for snacks, mains and dessert, and some extras if guests ask for an additional plate or fork. And do not use disposable dinnerware – grown-ups rarely do.

· Even if a relative has arm-twisted you into hosting, come out muscles flexing. Draw on nostalgia, putting family memories, inside jokes, personal quirks and old pet names to good use. Print some of these on the place mats.

· Get 10-metre fairy lights and arrange them on the table or wall to spell out FAMILY, or go with the family name, or the name of the person being celebrated. “Maybe intersperse it with small gifts for each guest to open before the meal begins,” says Kothari. That adds more flavour than pepper.

Set up a chalkboard with a welcome note scrawled by the baby of the family. Display the old wedding gifts, the crystal, the heirlooms, even the ones everyone thought had been thrown away.