30 Haunting Halloween Table Settings + DIY Table Decorating Ideas

Host an eerie yet elegant Halloween gathering this year with one of our scary-good ideas for setting the scene of the feast.

By: Maria Conti and Jenny Reimold

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Photo By: Evin Krehbiel, Styling by Jenny Reimold

Set the Scene for a Frightful Feast

Celebrate All Hallow's Eve with a dining room table dressed to kill — literally. We conjured up 30 festive-and-frightening tablescape ideas to recreate at home for a haunting and happy dining room in time for Halloween. Read on to get the inside scoop on our spirited table designs and sweet-and-scary eats, plus pick up a few decorating tips along the way.

First up: This ominous Edgar Allen Poe-themed dining table. Achieve the same eerie appeal by decking your table with lurking ravens, misplaced skulls, glowing lanterns, a discarded typewriter and spider webs by the pound.

See More Photos: 60 Frighteningly Fun Halloween Party Ideas

Pull Your Skeletons Out of the Closet

Go all-in on your Edgar Allen Poe dining room theme by inviting a ghostly Poe to your party. Craft up this focal point to head your table; spray paint foraged tree limbs black and secure them to a Christmas tree stand. Hang sections of old, thrifted books to the branches with twine and finish with a rogue raven for good measure. Dress your skeleton in Poe’s iconic neck scarf and top hat.

Get the Recipe: Halloween Kids' Craft: Pretzel Skeletons

Serve an Eerie Edible Centerpiece

Why wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate a gingerbread house when you can put your icing skills to use right now? Deck out your Halloween table with a homemade haunted gingerbread house centerpiece that your guests will eagerly eat. The best part: Decorating a Halloween house is the perfect family activity, and the sloppier the icing, the spookier the results.

Get the Recipe: How to Make a Halloween-Approved Gingerbread House

Be Hands On

Just because you have limited sewing skills doesn’t mean you need to break the bank on a store-bought Halloween tablecloth for boo-tiful results. Lay the groundwork for your scary-chic holiday table with this easy no-sew hack. Pick out a black-and-white fabric from your go-to craft store and apply pom trim along the ends with fabric glue to give the cloth a finished look.

Get More Ideas: Easy-Sew Fabric Pumpkins

Soften Your Seats

Give guests a soft spot to land for dinner and drinks by layering each chair with a foreboding throw pillow. This inviting seat features a shadowy raven with a cautionary greeting, but you can adopt this idea to fit your party theme. Spiders, vampires and spooky skeleton motifs are all failproof ideas to consider for your table at home.

Get the How-To: How to Make a Halloween Applique Pillow

Spell It Out

Set the scene for your spooky-cute soirée by stringing festive holiday greetings above your dining table. This picture-worthy table offers ample inspiration with a black-and-white letter pennant banner paired with an orange, spider-infested polka dot garland.

See More Photos: 60 Frighteningly Fun Halloween Party Ideas

Invite Mr. Bones

Skip the sophisticated charcuterie and creep it real this Halloween with a scary-cute skeleton snack board instead. Make the vibrant, treat-packed Mr. Bones the focal point of your holiday table and encourage your guests to rip him apart, limb by limb, upon their arrival.

Get the Recipe: How to Make a Skeleton Cookie Charcuterie Board for Halloween

Add Whimsy Overhead

It’s easy to get bogged down with your tablescape details but add a little Halloween flair overhead, too. Play with traditional black, white and orange hues and attach festive baubles to your chandelier. Bonus points if your Halloween baubles are rich with retro vibes and dripping with ribbon tassels like the grinning jack-o'-lanterns and kitty cuties seen here.

Get the How-To: DIY No-Sew Ornaments for Halloween Trees

Pick Your Poison

Crown your Halloween table with a tray packed with colorful concoctions and perilous potions ripe for guests' picking. Pull from our spell book, below, to mix up a crowd-pleasing drink for a frighteningly-fun fête.

Get More Ideas: 50 Scary-Good Halloween Cocktails

From: Heather Baird

Run Amuck! Amuck! Amuck!

When the pumpkins come out of the attic, “I Put a Spell on You” comes out of the speakers, and it’s time to welcome fall with a Hocus Pocus marathon. Celebrate everyone’s favorite Halloween movie with a witchy-themed dining room to honor Salem’s famous sisters. Of course, it would be impolite not to invite them to your thematic dining table. Welcome them into your home by spray painting a black branch from your yard and hang their notorious velvet dresses and wigs overhead to include Sarah, Mary and Winifred in the festivities.

get the how-to: How to Make a Witch's Broom or Besom

Come Little Children

Keep young guests busy by offering a creepy craft in the form of DIY cookie kits. Michelle Wilson, owner of Meesh’s Bakery, created premade cookie packs filled with freshly baked cookies and small, disposable icing bags perfect for tiny hands. You could make these at home or you could purchase bakery cookies and allow children to decorate their desserts with store-bought icing. Meesh’s Bakery also made custom Sanderson Sisters cookies from cutters from Kaleida Cuts.

Get More Ideas: 60 Sweet & Salty Halloween Snacks

Park Your Broomsticks

Bewitch your dining table in time for your All Hallow’s Eve feast with this witch-approved place card. Follow our step-by-step tutorial, below, to create our custom broomstick name cards for each of your Halloween dinner guests. The enchanting brooms add a magical appeal to any place setting and make the perfect parting gifts for their namesakes.

Get the How-To: Witch's Broom Halloween Place Card Holders

From: Marian Parsons

Add Something Oozing + Slimy

Festive drip cakes are the perfect centerpiece and tasty treat for any family dinner or Halloween party. Baker, Michelle Wilson of Meesh’s Bakery in Franklin, Tn., states that one trick of the trade is to start with a chilled, frosted cake. Use a plastic bottle with ganache, just a bit warmer than room temperature, for your drip but be certain to do a “test drip” before going all in.

Get More Ideas: 66 Frightfully Delicious Halloween Dessert Ideas

Mummify Your Drink Dispenser

Make your serveware work overtime as scary-cute Halloween decor with a few simple accessories, à la this mummified punch dispenser. Turn your glass beverage dispenser into a mummy by wrapping the exterior with white craft tape and creating all-seeing eyes with a black paint pen.

Serve Snacks to Match: Halloween Haystack Mummies Recipe

Add a Pop of Posion

Lead your guests into temptation with our Halloween table mainstay: poisoned apples. Pile the grim and glossy apples on your finest pewter, silver or ceramic cake stand and display the deadly but delicious bunch at the center of your table. Follow the link below for our step-by-step recipe and ingredients list.

Get the Recipe: Black Candy Apples Recipe

From: Brian Patrick Flynn

Serve Curious Creations

Offer dinner guests a spread of sophisticated yet stomach-churning treats. This Halloween table appears elegant at first glance, but upon further inspection, you'll find that the eats are far less appealing than you first believed. Rotund bugs lay claim to crackers while maggots overtake the pretty pink cake.

Make the terrifying treats at home by creating Caprese salad ladybug bites by topping crackers with mozzarella slices, basil leaves, halved cherry tomatoes and sliced olives. Dip yellow gummy worms in melted chocolate to reimagine the nauseating maggots seen here for your Halloween cake.

Get More Ideas: Halloween Party Food: Potato Beetles Recipe

Cut Down on Cost

Layer a simple ceramic place setting with paper plates to create a brand-new look for your Halloween table without breaking your budget. Here, milkglass dishware stacks under disposable paper plates for a patterned pop of color.

Bring Out Bone-Chilling Accents

Break out your best bone-chilling accessories to give your Halloween table unmatched eerie appeal. Skeletal cutlery, wine glasses and platters are among our favorite fear-inspiring accents, as are these ivory taper candles carved into a bone silhouette.

get the how-to: How to Make Distressed Leather-Wrapped Books

From: H. Camille Smith

Incorporate Devilish Details

Dial up the dismal vibes on your Halloween tablescape with sinister labels and party signage. Add a hand-scribed note to your ice bucket that reads “tears for cheers,” and slap a poison warning on your water carafe. Take your punny labeling talents to the buffet, naming your dishes unappetizing things like batwings, rice creepies or Franken burgers.

Get More Ideas: 100+ Printable (and Free!) Halloween Templates

Go a Little Batty

Install our paper bat backdrop for an Insta-worthy photo-op your guests will love. Pro tip: Achieve a professional, dimensional result by installing your bats in a diagonal pack arranged by size. Start with your small bats at the top and gradually increase the bat's size as they fly closer to the table.

Get the How-To: Flying Bats

From: Kim Stoegbauer

Include Favors for Littles

Let the kids kick off the party with a bang (literally!) with English-style crackers or other interactive games and activities. Check out a few more Halloween party games for all ages, below.

See More Photos: 31 Fun Halloween Party Games for Kids and Adults

From: H. Camille Smith

Create a Shriek-Worthy Centerpiece

Make this haunted spot your muse and create a foreboding Halloween centerpiece with soaring, inky-black branches infested with a cauldron of bats. Forage branches from your backyard and paint them matte black before securing them in a stoneware urn using floral foam. Fill the basin with preserved moss, then attach fabric bats (or almost-free construction paper bats) to the branches to conjure creep-tastic results.

Get the How-To: Make a Dead-Branch Centerpiece for Halloween

From: Brian Patrick Flynn

Cast a Spell on Your Tablecloth

Transform a plain white tablecloth into a colorful cover for your picnic table just in time for Halloween. Recreate our spellbinding tablecloth to spook your table with our step-by-step tutorial, below.

Get the How-To: DIY Halloween Decor: Make Clever Crafts With Stencils

Give 'Em the Creepy Crawlies

Beware: This playful DIY may lead your Halloween guests to lose their appetites and shriek when they sit down to eat. Leave an ominous trail of spiders across their plates with a few plastic spiders and our step-by-step insect plate tutorial, below.

Get the How-To: Hand-Painted Insect Plates

From: Marian Parsons

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Invite your guests to sit for a spell and enjoy this eerie alcohol-free aperitif before dinner. To brew: Mix two scoops of green sherbet with one cup of ginger ale in a plastic or ceramic cauldron mug. Get the party started by stirring in a splash of your favorite spirits for an adult-friendly treat.

Get More Ideas: Melted Witch Martini

Play With Pattern

Anything goes on Halloween and that includes an abundance of patterns and colors. Typically, we would not advise combining harlequin prints, polka dots, stripes and glitter on one table, but it's fair game for the spookiest day of the year. On this table, orange-and-white chevron silverware tucks into a striped napkin on a harlequin tablecloth. The full-on festive results speak for themselves.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

A flock of wicked birds creates a bleak, eerie setting for a Halloween feast. Use this raven-inspired table as your guide and ignite unease around your Halloween table using feathered foe dishware, accessories and linens.

Get More Ideas: Get Crafty: Make a Raven Nest Candy Dish

Cast an Eerie Glow

Save the ivory tapers for Thanksgiving dinner and give your Halloween table an eerie glow with our creep-tastic custom candles. Create a bloody hand and other iconic Halloween-inspired candles using a dash of kinetic sand, a splash of creativity and a few decorative objects you already have on hand. Get the step-by-step guide to ignite the candle project at home in the link below.

Get the How-To: Make Custom Halloween Candles With Moldable Sand

Come, We Fly!

If your dining collection lacks spellbinding napkin rings, we have the perfect (budget-friendly!) trick to fill the void. Raid your garage for a bit of copper or brass wire, loop it, then pull your napkins through. Finally, slide a mini craft broomstick through to add a dazzling Halloween touch to each napkin.

Get More Ideas: Witch's Broom Halloween Place Card Holders

The Cat's Meow

No Hocus Pocus-inspired table would be complete without Thackery Binx, the young man transformed into a talking black cat. Binx keeps a watchful eye over guests atop a witch’s handbook found at a craft store.

Get More Ideas: How to Make Black Cat Pumpkins

30 Haunting Halloween Table Settings + DIY Table Decorating Ideas

Related To:

Shop This Look

Set the Scene for a Frightful Feast

Pull Your Skeletons Out of the Closet

Serve an Eerie Edible Centerpiece

Be Hands On

Soften Your Seats

Spell It Out

Invite Mr. Bones

Add Whimsy Overhead

Pick Your Poison

Run Amuck! Amuck! Amuck!

Come Little Children

Park Your Broomsticks

Add Something Oozing + Slimy

Mummify Your Drink Dispenser

Add a Pop of Posion

Serve Curious Creations

Cut Down on Cost

Bring Out Bone-Chilling Accents

Incorporate Devilish Details

Go a Little Batty

Include Favors for Littles

Create a Shriek-Worthy Centerpiece

Cast a Spell on Your Tablecloth

Give 'Em the Creepy Crawlies

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Play With Pattern

Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Cast an Eerie Glow

Come, We Fly!

The Cat's Meow

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