Ceremony Chairs

ernursej

Background Information:

I'm getting married in a restaurant. The restaurant is made up of traditional chairs/tables and banquettes/tables. The banquette seating is not moveable. There will be more than enough room for every bum to have a seat (restaurant chair or banquette) at the reception.

Topic Information:

For the ceremony, I would like to have traditional rows of chairs with an aisle up the middle. In order to have rows, I will have to rent some chairs as the banquettes are not facing the direction that would allow guests a view so those spaces are not useful for the ceremony.

Question: Should I rent enough chairs for every bum so that the colours/look is the same or just rent the amount of chairs that I would need in addition to the chairs at the restaurant and have a mishmash? I honestly don't care, but my Mom and MIL sort of turned up their noses. It is $6.00/chair and we are looking at renting between 30 (if we do the mishmash) or 60 (if we do same/same). The cost is not really a problem since I had originally budgeted for renting 60 chairs when I thought we might do the ceremony outside.

Thoughts??

CMGragain

How would the chairs be moved between your ceremony and the reception?  That is the only issue that I see.

ernursej

CMGragain said:

How would the chairs be moved between your ceremony and the reception?  That is the only issue that I see.

Chairs are being moved by the restaurant staff. The restaurant is technically two rooms (although the rooms are connected and you can see both rooms from the majority of seats). We will get married on one side, have cocktails on the other (while the ceremony chairs are moved away from the first side and the tables are set up on the first side ... according to the restaurant, takes 15 minutes) and then dinner in both sides. Our table will be at the front of the restaurant where every guest can see us.

missfrodo

ernursej said:

CMGragain said:

How would the chairs be moved between your ceremony and the reception?  That is the only issue that I see.

Chairs are being moved by the restaurant staff. The restaurant is technically two rooms (although the rooms are connected and you can see both rooms from the majority of seats). We will get married on one side, have cocktails on the other (while the ceremony chairs are moved away from the first side and the tables are set up on the first side ... according to the restaurant, takes 15 minutes) and then dinner in both sides. Our table will be at the front of the restaurant where every guest can see us.

I'd just rent the 30 chairs, then.  As a guest, I wouldn't care or even really notice if the chairs weren't all the same.  People are going to be interested in your ceremony space at the front of the room.  I think your mom and FMIL are over-analyzing this.  

ILoveBeachMusic

The only reason I would consider renting chairs for all is if the one chair is more comfortable than the other - i.e. have a cushy seat vs. wooden/plastic. I have an physical issue sitting on something that is hard. If there were different chairs, and I didn't get to sit in one that was cushy I would wonder why there were different chairs.

ernursej

ILoveBeachMusic said:

The only reason I would consider renting chairs for all is if the one chair is more comfortable than the other - i.e. have a cushy seat vs. wooden/plastic. I have an physical issue sitting on something that is hard. If there were different chairs, and I didn't get to sit in one that was cushy I would wonder why there were different chairs.

They are a bit different, wooden at the restaurant and rentals are folding chairs with a slightly padded seat. I'm not sure that they are really more comfortable than the wooden chairs would be. I'll have to go and sit in one and see. If there is that much difference, I'll rent the lot.

drglitter

I agree that as long as one set of chairs isn't clearly more comfortable than the others,  you're fine.

If they're equally comfortable, and it's really important to your mom and FMIL, could you rent just the chairs you need and chair covers to make them all match? Ours were like $2 each.

SP29

Agreed.

If one is more comfortable than the other, then I'd go all the same. But otherwise, who cares if they look the same or not.

Jen4948

Sounds like since all the chairs have the same level of comfort, I'd go ahead and rent them.  I wouldn't worry about whether or not they match, but if that matters so much to your mom and FMIL, I agree with the above suggestion that they could cover the costs for chair covers. If they won't do that, I'd tell them, "Thank you, but this is what we're doing. I'm sorry that you don't like it, but the subject is closed."

ernursej

I don't think chair covers would work as I've seen some similar chairs with covers and they just moved around a lot. I think I'll go and sit on the rental ones and if the same, I'll just rent only the amount needed instead of trying for matchy-matchy. I'm fine with letting my Mom and FMIL know that it is not a big deal. They both come from personal experience of the matchy-matchy everything wedding so I shouldn't have been too surprised that they might raise an eyebrow at the thought of mishmash.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Edited for ideas.

SaintPaulGal

It would bother me personally to have non-matching chairs at my own wedding, but I wouldn't care one iota about the chairs as a guest.  If it's not something that you personally feel strongly about I would suggest that you save the money.