Backwards from the drinks reception

It is the only way a timeline is any use for making decisions. Built forwards — «we get in at eight, let us see how far we get» — the slack always disappears in the same place: at the end, when there is no getting it back.

Backwards, every task has a latest time and it is immediately obvious which one does not fit. If the final walk-through has to start at 13:00 and the flowers do not arrive until 12:30, there is a problem you solve on Monday with a phone call, not on Saturday at midday.

The order you cannot change

Four steps, and each one rests on the one before. Skipping them does not speed anything up: it means undoing work.

  • Tables and chairs first, and in their final position. Dressing a table you then have to move throws away fifteen minutes.
  • Linen next, with the table already levelled. An underlay laid over a table that wobbles shows in the drape and has to be redone.
  • Cutlery, glassware and menu cards on top of the laid cloth. It is the slowest step and the one that takes the most people in parallel.
  • Flowers and decoration last, because they are the most fragile and the most in the way of everything above.

Who comes in and when: external suppliers

Florist, sound, lighting, photo booth and sometimes a musician. Each of them believes their set-up is the one that governs, and all of them want to come in early because early there is room.

The rule that works: suppliers come in when their task is due, not when it suits them. And they get a specific time in writing, with the state the room will be in when they arrive. A florist who turns up at nine with the tables undressed is in the way for two hours and then has to come back.

The point of no return

It is when the first table is dressed. Before that, moving a table is a push; after it, you have to strip the cloth, move it with two or three people, level it and dress it again. Twenty minutes and three people per table, with the clock running.

That is why the eight o’clock walk-through is not a formality: it is the last cheap chance to check that the plan matches the room. Ten minutes with a tape measure and the printed plan save the eleven o’clock scenario, when twenty tables are dressed and somebody discovers the trolley does not fit down the central gangway.

The paperwork each person carries

Three documents and no more. The head waiter carries the full plan with the numbering and the set-up sheet. Each member of the set-up team carries the sheet for their section: which tables are theirs and how many chairs go on each. The kitchen carries the sheet with totals by menu and requirements by table and seat.

All of them with the print time visible. That is what stops somebody working from Thursday’s version, which is the mistake that most often ends with two people standing up at three in the afternoon.