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"How Alec Baldwin, Sally Quinn, Vanessa Traina Seat, and Other Stars Seat a Dinner Party\nThe Inquisitive Guest gets party planning advice from celebrities\n\"I never split up couples,\" said yoga instructor Hilaria Baldwin, one of the gala's chairpersons along with her husband, actor Alec Baldwin. \"I just put them next to the people they want to sit with. When we have dinner parties, they're very small and intimate.\" And her very best seat? \"The other night we were at Elton John's AIDS benefit in New York,\" she said. \"We were at the table with Sir Elton and his partner, David Furnish, and Hillary Clinton. I was seated next to Donna Karan, who is incredible, and a big yogi.\"\nAlec, seen here with Hilaria, Ann Clough, and Smithsonian secretary Wayne G. Clough, also served as the evening's M.C. \"I used to do these evenings in Los Angeles years ago where I'd invite disparate groups of people to have dinner,\" he recalled. \"There were always people that I thought would like each other. I thought they'd become friends, and it never failed.\"\n\"If you go strictly by diplomatic protocol, you have to follow certain rules of the game,\" said Her Excellency Nirupama Rao, India's ambassador to the U.S., at the Freer and Sackler gala with Secretary Clough. \"You have prominent personalities, senior representatives from government or Congress, who receive special placement. But at the same time, you also like to make sure there is an interesting mix.\"\n\"My mother-in-law, [noted author and journalist] Sally Quinn, wrote the book on this,\" said Washington, D.C., yoga guru Pari Bradlee, pictured with Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation. \"And she really wants me to be this hostess with the mostess, but I'm a disaster! Still, I agree with her that couples should be separated. I see my husband, Quinn, every day. So then you're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs. I want to talk to somebody new. And then when you get home, you have all this great stuff to talk about with your other half.\"\n\nHer ultimate dinner partner? \"Jack Nicholson, honey. Hands down,\" she replied.\nDuring cocktails, the Inquisitive Guest buttonholed Sally Quinn to get her take. \"I would never put a husband and wife next to each other,\" she informed AD. \"I think that is the party killer of all time. And I don't ever have a \u2018star' table, where all the superstars sit. That makes people feel really bad. I always have somebody with some sort of glitz at each table, to make everybody feel like they're important.\"\n\nQuinn is seen here with her son, Quinn Bradlee, center, and friends.\nSanskrit scholar Sir James Mallinson, the fifth Baronet of Walthamstow (shown right), had another view on mixing things up. \"The other day I was [putting out place cards] for my stepfather's 70th birthday, and I was alternating men and women, as one does in England, and he said, \u2018Forget that.' He wanted to put interesting people together. I think it went very well.\"\n\"Well, it depends whom I'm inviting,\" Her Imperial Majesty Farah Pahlavi (center), wife of the late Shah of Iran, told AD. \"I don't come very often to America, so I invite many of my Iranian compatriots. But always it's a buffet, not a seated dinner.\n\nPahlavi is seen here with Annie S. Totah and Helen Jessup.\nAt the Explorers Club in New York for the launch of his jewelry collection, designer, actor, and filmmaker Waris Ahluwalia, seen here with actress Natasha Lyonne, mentioned, \"I don't think I often have good luck with seating at other people's dinners. But that's okay, I have great cab luck, great parking luck.\"\nAlso at the Explorers Club, actress Mickey Sumner, daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler, indicated that she likes to separate couples and seat in a boy-girl-boy arrangement. \"The pretty ones next to pretty ones,\" interjected a friend standing nearby.\n\n\"She's totally right,\" said Sumner (right), pictured with producer Lucy Cooper. \"But everyone's pretty. Also, I'm an actress, so I don't really want to meet an actor, I'd love to meet a scientist.\"\nAD caught up with stylist Vanessa Traina and her husband, photographer Max Snow, at the Explorers Club. Traina said that she uses assigned seating. \"You try to balance personalities,\" she said. \"Encourage people to get to know someone new.\"\n\nAnd has Snow ever had a particularly special seat? \"I'm not that lucky,\" he said. \"On airplanes I always hope I'll be seated next to a beautiful woman, but I always end up sitting next to some big guy eating Cheetos.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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