How to Cover a Serpentine Table

Photo Source: All Seasons Rent-All

Serpentine tables are a great addition to a wedding or corporate event. They are fantastic to use for buffets in particular as they provide nice aesthetic appeal while allowing buffet lines to move faster with both sides being used. Ensuring that you can find tablecloths for serpentine tables is an entirely different story though.

The easiest way to cover a serpentine table (and perhaps the most readily available way) is using table skirting and a top cover tablecloth.

How to figure out the size tablecloth and skirting needed for a serpentine table:

In order to calculate the size tableskirting required you need to figure out the inner diameter of the serpentine, the outer diameter of the serpentine and the width. I’m going to be using the 2 different kinds of serpentine tables we sell as our example models.

Our wood serpentine table has an inner diameter of 60”, an outer diameter of 120” and a width of 30” so our formula would be: 60 inches + 120 inches + 30 inches (for right side of the table) + 30 inches (for left side of the table) = 240 inches of table to skirt. Since most table skirting is sold in feet, we would take 240 inches / 12 inches per foot = 20 feet. Therefore our 21 ft table skirt would work well at covering all sides from table height to floor of our wood serpentine table.

Since we need to also ensure our top of the serpentine is properly covered. We again would go to our serpentine dimensions. Since the serpentine table is 30 inches wide and the longest length is 120 inches in diameter we would need a table cloth to cover the serpentine table 30” x 120”. In the case of the polyester tablecloths that we sell that would work for the serpentine table top cover – a 60” x 126” table cloth would cover the table fully.

Our plastic serpentine table has an inner diameter of 55”, an outer diameter of 102” and a width of 30” so our formula would be: 55 inches + 102 inches + 30 inches (for right side of the table) + 30 inches (for left side of the table) = 217 inches of table to skirt. Since most table skirting is sold in feet, we would take 217 inches / 12 inches per foot = 18.1 feet. Our 17ft table skirt would be just a touch too small so we would opt for our 21 ft table skirt to cover all sides from table height to floor of our plastic serpentine table.

Since we need to also ensure our top of the serpentine is properly covered. We again would go to our serpentine dimensions. Since the serpentine table is 30 inches wide and the longest length is 102 inches in diameter we would need a table cloth to cover the serpentine table 30” x 102”. In the case of the polyester tablecloths that we sell that would work for the serpentine table top cover – a 60” x 126” table cloth would cover the table fully. We do have a 60” x 102” tablecloth but that wouldn’t provide enough coverage to ensure the tabletop isn’t showing.

Other ways that serpentine tables can be covered is utilizing spandex table covers and fitted serpentine table cloths in polyester. These will be generally more expensive as they are specialty shapes.