Wedding Guests: Event Assigned Seating

Loved ones, associates, and family friends: Where will these folks be seated while you’re having your defining moment? With parents or guardians, stepmoms and stepdads, separated parents, grandma and grandpa, and relatives all planning to attend, you may need a plan. People are challenging. Same goes with trying to figure out where they should be seated during the ceremony. Until now: we’re here to help you.

If you are hosting around 50 guests or a self serve buffet, you may or may not want to give guests particular seating allocations. But if you’re having a couple of hundred family and friends and giving a seated course, you might want to make sure everyone’s got a precise spot to sit. Why?

First of all, guests prefer to know precisely where they are sitting down—and that you spent the time to consider exactly where and whom they have to be placed with. To provide yet another viewpoint to the mix, there is the fact that it is probable that many people attending will likely be expecting assigned seating—not a rush to get the most ideal dining tables. Below are some of the tips.

It’s advisable to begin the process of assigned seating as soon as possible. Holding out till the evening before the wedding (or even event morning) to begin the sitting chart is not a good plan. Do not let this be you—you’ll have more important matters to take care of at that time!

Create a paper trail by illustrating rings (for dining tables) on a large sheet of paper and write down names inside them (be sure you learn how many individuals could comfortably be placed at each). Or you can jot down every single invitee’s name on a post-it to set appropriately. Then all you have to do is divide these lists into defined tables.

No surprise, you wish to distance a number of your loved ones. Whether or not to give wedding guests the option to choose their own seats makes sense in theory. It also relies on what you already know about said guests. Reception tables can provide an awesome prospect to unite your friends and family and your sweetheart’s—maybe a couple will hit it off. Try seating friends that don’t know one another (yet), but who you feel are certain to get along extremely well, at the same dining table—and the rest is history.

In a few cases, it’s possible to forego assigned seating altogether without issues. In others, the sheer possibility of nasty scenarios requires assigning particular seats. Actually, only you know how your family and friends will respond to unassigned seats, with or without restrictions. Be completely honest with yourself when you consider the probable response to making a conventional seating chart or not, and let your heart be your guide.

Keep reading to find out more on how you can address the issues of event seating:

Let’s start off with the head table. A regular head table is not round, but long and extended, and is usually arranged along the length of a wall, on risers, facing the rest of the wedding reception dining tables. It may have a couple of layers if your bridal party is larger. Usually the special couple is positioned appropriately in the middle (where everyone is able to see them), with the maid of honor beside the bridegroom, the best man next to the bride, then bridesmaid/groomsman out from there. Flower girls or ring bearers often are positioned at the tables with their dads and moms, much to the gratitude of the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Decide to seat in this way, or arrange a sweetheart table for a bit of intimate time.

But you do not only have to do it this way. All of the maids can be placed on the bride’s side and all the groomsmen on the groom’s. Or it could be you just aren’t into being on exhibit, or you wouldn’t like the wedding party to seem separated from other party guests. Let your bridesmaids and groomsmen sit at a circular event table or two together and/or with their dates/significant others, and have the head table be a sweetheart table just for the two of you. (Super romantic!) An alternative—you two be seated with your mothers and fathers and designate that as the main table, with the wedding party at their individual dining tables.

Now to seat the parents. With regards to your mother and father plus your spouse’s mother and father, they sometimes sit together at the same table, along with grandparents, brothers and sisters not in the bridal party, as well as the officiant and his/her spouse in case they come to the reception. But if your parents or even your spouse’s folks are divorced, and they are unhappy about being next to each other, you might need to have each set of parents have their own dinner table of special loved ones and/or good friends. This may result in as many as four parents’ tables, based upon your given situation—or have the separated parent who brought you up (or perhaps your fiance) and his/her significant other/date be seated at the table with still-wedded parents. (Wow, confusing!)

Bear in mind, the parent-seating point is definitely a versatile one. Work it with whichever option best satisfies everybody. If perhaps you happen to be not sure, feel free to check with the folks in question about that prior to making your selection.

We’ll end this by repeating the advantage of getting started on your seating chart as soon as possible. Set up your event seat chart at least 7 days prior to your wedding reception date. Of course, it is okay to have eleventh hour corrections, but try to get the majority of it completed a minimum of 1 week earlier. Therefore, you can make the place and table cards, and present them to the caterers and/or venue site manager 2 to 3 days prior to the wedding ceremony.

Regardless of whether or not to give the invitees the option to choose their own seats is determined by exactly how your loved ones will deal with unassigned seating, with or without constraints. Truthfully, only you have an idea of what may happen. Be honest with yourself when you contemplate the likely benefits of creating a traditional assigned seating chart or not, and allow your gut to be your guide.