The best-set tables we know are not the fussiest. They are the ones where everything on them gets used — where the serving bowl in the middle is the same one that held yesterday's fruit, and the napkins have softened from a hundred washes.
Start from the center
A single wide, low serving bowl does most of the work. Fill it with whatever the meal is built around and let it anchor the table. Add a board for bread, a small pot of good salt within reach, and you are most of the way there.
Texture over matching
Resist the urge to match everything. Stoneware in a couple of related tones, linen that drapes, a warm run of brass flatware — the small differences are what make a table feel gathered rather than staged.
Light and a little green
A lit taper and a short gathering of stems ask almost nothing and change everything. Keep it low so people can see one another across it.