Want to make your candles burn bright longer? We’ve got you covered.
When it comes to hosting holiday gatherings, the food is just as important as the table you’re serving it on — and if you’re looking to really make a statement, consider getting help from some very special experts. Amy Burstyn Fritz and her sister Sarah Pecaut founded a new company called Misette (pronounced “my set”) that helps people set the perfect table via beautiful, artisan-produced products from all over the world. Bringing people together is a specialty of these sisters: After years spent producing star-studded dinners and celebrations, they now bring their eye for curation and expertise with big-scale events into regular homes. You can use their curated collections as a complete set, collect individual items slowly, or mix-and-match for an effortless tablescape.
Amy helped me pick out items for my Thanksgiving tablescape — which turned out beautiful, by the way — and she had some great tips for making sure your table not only looks great, but that the things you put on it continue to shine throughout the night. Here are some of her pointers:
Amy, to kick things off: Can you remind me of that great way you mentioned to make candles burn more slowly?
I like to put my candlesticks in the freezer one hour before the event starts, to harden the wax so they burn slower and last longer.
And sometimes, the wax from candles drips down onto the table. Do you have any recommendations for combating that?
Freezing the candles beforehand will definitely help! Once you light them, they’ll burn for hours before they start dripping. Also, we add add tape to the bottoms of long tapered candles, to keep them snug in the candleholders.
I posted a hack on TikTok that showed how you can freeze glass candleholders and then the melted wax pops right out, so that’s a tip from yours truly. But what about wick care? That’s really important — who knew?
People always forget to do this, but you really should trim your wicks before each use, for a clean and even burn every time.
How do you keep your cloth napkins looking good?
Before an event, we steam our linen napkins to keep them looking clean and crisp. But after the event, we throw them in an ice-water bath to soak before laundering them with other linens. If there are stubborn stains, we spray a stain solution on them before washing them.
My mom was such a stickler about coasters — as they said on Seinfeld, “Respect the wood!” — how do you make sure people use them?
We like to place them where they’re easily reachable for guests to grab, like on a coffee table or by the bar. Another great way to subtly tell guests to use a coaster is to present one with their drinks. It also helps when coasters are beautifully made.
Any recommendations for flowers this time of year? I’m not a huge fan of the orange and brown look.
We say to pick your favorite blooms, and you don’t have to always stick to the conventional “holiday” colors. As a general rule for flower-arranging, New York-based floral designer Doan Ly once told us to play with texture and color, and to not be afraid to mix saturated tones together with a mix of different sizes and shapes. But if we really had to pick our favorites for this time of year, poppies and dahlias are seasonless crowd-pleasers that work just as well as part of a larger arrangement as they do with a few choice stems standing on their own.
