First, check out our post dedicated to ‘organising your bridal party‘.During a site visit with your decorator you will go over options for how the table layout will be based on their design. Do you want to use round tables or rectangular tables or both? Where will the head table be? Will the bridal party sit with the bride and groom or will they have separate tables? Where will the parents table be? How many persons will be at a table?
Seating Methods
This is where all the question marks start floating. How are your guests going to be seated? More than likely you’ll do this a couple weeks before the wedding once you have received the table layout from your decorator. So what are your options?:
1. No seating plan – sit where you fit
2. Reserve tables for the specific guests only, everyone else – sit where you fit
3. Assigned tables
4. Assign tables and seats
Your decision all depends on you and the type of wedding that you want. You know your guests, so do you think that you will need to prevent the start of world war III, or are your guests able to conduct themselves? Do you want to have the front tables assigned to your bridal party, parents and siblings, with their families, etc and it doesn’t matter where everyone else sits?
Most times we recommend option 2 to our clients. Your immediate family (and whoever else you consider in the same light) deserve that place “up front”. Whilst everyone there is important (that’s why they’re on your list), let’s ensure your family can see that tear drop during the speeches. Everyone else has been accounted for and will have a seat.
Save yourself the headache of assigning everyone, especially in large weddings. We promise you the week of the wedding you will still be making changes because, well, people are just flaky, and you do not want that stress. Even when you have a wedding planner, they still have to liaise with you on this, that’s one thing we can’t save you from. If we can do it without you, it means it’s not that important where people sit anyway.
Once the formalities and dinner are over guests rarely stay at their tables and end up socialising with persons who they are more familiar with. It’s ok for them to make a new friend if they end up at a table with unfamiliar faces – they all have something in common to start a conversation – YOU!
We can go on and on but hope this has helped.
Have specific questions about your seating plan? Comment below, we’ll be glad to help!
