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Seating Chart Display

knottie568792a388acc9f5knottie568792a388acc9f5 member
in Wedding Reception Forum

Okay, ladies I'm Indian and it's tradition for us to have large weddings. My wedding will have 500 guests (30 guests are my husband's and I, and 470 are our parents guests).

I'm having trouble deciding how to display the seating chart for our guests at the wedding.

I've been to 400+ weddings and they did posters, but that was a horrible idea. Imagine 400 guests crowding around 2 posters last minute to find their table... complete disaster! But would multiple posters help??

I've also been to a 300+ wedding and the bride did escort cards. That surprisingly was a great idea. It worked perfectly during the wedding. But now I'm having trouble thinking of displaying 500 cards on the welcome tables... that's gonna be A LOT of tables!

If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated if you could share! Thanks :)

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Re: Seating Chart Display

  • ahoyweddingahoywedding member
    First Comment First Anniversary First Answer 5 Love Its
    I like the idea of place cards, because you're right, a poster or some other display will be way too overwhelming. Arrange the cards in alphabetical order, and include a "header" when a new letter starts. If your tables will be in a hallway or area with two walls, you could even put a little space between the tables to lessen the crowding. Make sure you leave time for guests to find their table, grab a drink, etc before starting dinner or anything else. Are you having a cocktail hour? It would be great if that could be in the same area, so guests can take their time finding their seats & getting comfortable.

    Will you have a wedding planner or day of coordinator? Or has your venue hosted any weddings of this size before? They may also have suggestions on what has worked well in the past.

    I'd also assume that if this isn't someone's first super large wedding, they would know what to expect.
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  • short+sassyshort+sassy member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    missJeanLouise said:
    knottie568792a388acc9f5 said:

    Okay, ladies I'm Indian and it's tradition for us to have large weddings. My wedding will have 500 guests (30 guests are my husband's and I, and 470 are our parents guests).

    I'm having trouble deciding how to display the seating chart for our guests at the wedding.

    I've been to 400+ weddings and they did posters, but that was a horrible idea. Imagine 400 guests crowding around 2 posters last minute to find their table... complete disaster! But would multiple posters help??

    I've also been to a 300+ wedding and the bride did escort cards. That surprisingly was a great idea. It worked perfectly during the wedding. But now I'm having trouble thinking of displaying 500 cards on the welcome tables... that's gonna be A LOT of tables!

    If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated if you could share! Thanks :)

    Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I would have long tables, organize them alphabetically, and put big letters where each group starts so people can easily find where their name will be. Round tables would also work so people aren’t bunched up. The key here is having signage that tells people where their name will be from a distance (like A- Am, Am-Bac, Bad-Dr, etc)
    Very much this!  I've never been to a large wedding.  However, I have been to conferences (large and small) that do this.  Usually that is related to "checking in" and not seating, but it's the same idea.
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  • MobKazMobKaz member
    First Anniversary First Comment First Answer 5 Love Its
    knottie568792a388acc9f5 said:

    Okay, ladies I'm Indian and it's tradition for us to have large weddings. My wedding will have 500 guests (30 guests are my husband's and I, and 470 are our parents guests).

    I'm having trouble deciding how to display the seating chart for our guests at the wedding.

    I've been to 400+ weddings and they did posters, but that was a horrible idea. Imagine 400 guests crowding around 2 posters last minute to find their table... complete disaster! But would multiple posters help??

    I've also been to a 300+ wedding and the bride did escort cards. That surprisingly was a great idea. It worked perfectly during the wedding. But now I'm having trouble thinking of displaying 500 cards on the welcome tables... that's gonna be A LOT of tables!

    If anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated if you could share! Thanks :)

    LOL  At first glance I thought you meant you have attended over 400 weddings! 
    Escort cards will definitely be the easiest (other than creating them) and I agree they should be spread out over several tables that have been placed apart from one another.

    The only other "out of the box" concept I can think of is creating posters on some type of spread sheet, shrinking them into readable formats and incorporating them into programs, if you plan on having one.  However, you would have to make sure most guests have access to these programs.
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