The table setting is shown during a media preview at the State Dining Room at the White House ahead of an official visit by Nordic leaders. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Wait, is the White House inviting the leaders of five Nordic nations to a state dinner — that most formal of diplomatic functions, where tuxedos and ice sculptures are the norm — and asking the presidents, prime ministers and assembled guests to sit on IKEA chairs?
The White House on Thursday previewed the decor and menu for Friday evening’s black-tie affair, and several reporters couldn’t help but notice that the sculptural white seating displayed under the chandeliers looked like it could have been a bargain buy from the value-price, high-design Swedish superstore’s aisles.
Not IKEA, we’re assured. But mod nonetheless, and a departure from the typically ornate furniture on which foreign dignitaries, Washington A-listers, and the smattering of imported celebrities who make up the typical state-dinner guest list usually park themselves.
And another double-take: There will be no tablecloths. No billowing swirls of brocade that usually connote a Serious Dinner. Just woven runners topping those au courant rustic-wood rectangular tables.
Could it be that this state dinner, during which the Obamas will welcome the leaders of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, after bilateral meetings, will be a little cooler than previous ones? And hey, in addition to the sleek decor, the after-dinner entertainment, pop singer Demi Lovato, has a young-skewing demographic.
Maybe we’re just trying to keep up with the guest nations, which are known for cutting-edge design and food trends that are taking over American Pinterest boards like so many conquering Vikings.
The more than 300 guests, who will converge under tents on the South Lawn on Friday night for the 12th state dinner of the Obama administration, might find out just how hip a formal do at the White House can be. Not that there won’t be plenty of the traditional state-dinner trappings: standbys like canapes (think aquavit seafood cocktail and a chicken-and-waffle combo), multiple forks, formal toasts and diplomacy are still on the menu.
[For state dinner, White House chefs go foraging, in true Nordic style]
And about those guests … State dinners are typically held in honor of a single guest nation’s leaders. But lest the Nordic leaders feel at all slighted by the Obama’s five-for-one approach, Charles Kupchan, the senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council, insisted during the dinner preview that it wasn’t a cattle call. It’s simply that the Nordic nations are so sympatico. “They represent one of the most integrated regions. … They have common perspective,” he said.
