I am having a destination wedding, but am planning a reception back home for when we return. At the reception, my mom is going to be making a HUGE buffet for about 200 guests. The reception is to be held on a Sunday afternoon....very casual. I was planning to have 20x5' round tables to seat the guests (and rent tableclothes and chair covers) but my fiance thought it would be better to have smaller "cruiser" tables around the venue so that people would mingle with each other more, especially since it is in the afternoon and is not a "sit-down" meal per se. We aren't going to be having speeches or dancing because it is not our thing.
He was thinking that if we sit everyone down, they won't mingle as much and they will expect things to be happening (speeches, dances etc). He thought maybe we could use large rectangular tables for the food, then about 15 cruiser tables (small tables that stand about 4 feet high and are about 3 feet wide--stand up and eat at them, no chairs) and stick white tablecloths on those with a small floral centerpiece in the middle of them. This way people would move around, talk to different people etc. as they wouldn't be restricted to chairs.
The venue is also on the water, with a large wrap around deck, so he thought that without the sit-down tables people may spend more time on the deck as well.
Has anyone seen this before? What do you think of this idea?