I'm getting married at CMAC. I'm having an issue with my reception location and accomodating our guest list and band. When we toured the venue it was empty (we are renting/bringing in everything) so it was really hard to visualize. We were told it would accomodate 150 people comfortably for a seated dinner with a DJ, and also were told a band over 5 pieces would cut into room a bit. No problem we thought.
Our total guest list is 139, and we have a band (6 piece I think), and are having a seated dinner. We've been working on the assumption of having 130 people show up, which leaves us with 13 tables of 10 each.
The further along I get into planning, the more and more real weddings I've stalked through photographer's blogs and such. The room has a balcony overlooking the room, so every photographer gets an aerial shot of the room. Most of these weddings appear to average about 100 people. None of these weddings look to have over 120 people (I count tables and chairs). After seeing these and thinking about the dimensions more (38x51) I think 150 was an unreasonable estimate of # of guests that could fit.
So, just now, we've been told by our caterer that yes, 130 is tight for that space and the remedy is to break down a couple tables when dinner is over for dancing. They supposedly do it all the time. I find the thought of booting guests out of chairs (even if there will be empty ones when people are dancing) to be rude. I also think it is tacky to have staff in the front of the room clearing out tables and chairs and dragging them through the room.
Has anyone seen this done before? Maybe I just never noticed. I don't know what to do at this point b/c our guest list is shaved down to bare bones.
Sorry so long. Any opinions would be appreciated.