What my seating chart makes me want to do

thelastdreamer

thelastdreamer

Right now I have my cousin joining us at the King's Table even though he's not in the wedding party or a date of the wedding party ... because every family table is completely full and I'm not sitting him with people he doesn't know. I have 18 college friends with tables of 8, and I can't split them into three groups (like 6 6 and 6) and spread them out because I don't have enough tables or space at other tables, and doing that would mean having to split up another family. So I have to pick which two college friends get to sit with FI's random family ... which is so evil ... but there literally is no other way.

GAH! Dramatics. 

LittleWohlscheid

That sounds rough! Hopefully your two college friends know each other, at least, so that they can talk to each other. Plus after dinner and toasts, everyone will move around and find people they know, so at least having them sit with the FI's family isn't so awful.

thelastdreamer

LittleWohlscheid said:

That sounds rough! Hopefully your two college friends know each other, at least, so that they can talk to each other. Plus after dinner and toasts, everyone will move around and find people they know, so at least having them sit with the FI's family isn't so awful.

Yeah it is a college friend and her date. And out of all my college friends she knows the other ones the least well, and she's very sweet and friendly and polite and I feel like would handle sitting with random people the best. But still. I think I feel worse about it too because our reception is more like a banquet. Like we're not having dancing but we're having a full on six course meal ... so people will be spending a LOT of time at their tables. 

LittleWohlscheid

@thelastdreamer Oh wow, I could see how you would be concerned about that. If you feel like she would handle it the best, you should definitely stick with that though. Not everyone can be seated in the perfect spot, I guess.

thelastdreamer

Yeah there's just no way to get everyone in a perfect spot. Unfortunately people don't always divide perfectly into groups of 8. I'm going to put her table right next to a table full of people she knows so she'll at least be able to kind of be near them. I feel so bad! Should I apologize in advance? 

LittleWohlscheid

I don't think it's necessary, but if you'd feel better about it you could. If she's as sweet as you say I'm sure she'll be understanding of the dilemma. Plus having her near people she knows will help out too, so she won't feel isolated.

thelastdreamer

scribe95 said:

I think I would feel weird as a guest to be at that table when I'm not a parent or wedding party member. 

Weirder than you would sitting alone at a table with all people you didn't know? 

It's not raised on a platform or anything like that, it's just in the middle of the room among all the other tables. He'll be sitting with his sister, her husband, and my brother (his cousin) so it just seemed to make way more sense than putting him alone at another table. 

theartistformerlyknownas

Oh girl I feel you. And then I had to redo mine so many times due to people backing out! 

What I ended up doing was splitting people into smaller groups, so while I might have had a group of 8 friends to sit together, I did 4 friends and 3 cousins instead. So everyone knew at least one other person/couple at their table in addition to their own date, even if the whole table didn't know each other. And I paired up those smaller groups by interest, like the few of my friends and few of H's friends seated together all play softball, or H's uncle who loves to hunt seated with my cousin who loves to hunt. So don't seat your cousin alone with strangers, but pull 3 or 4 other family members from another table to sit with him plus a few others, and backfill close friends (college roommates?) into the newly opened family tables.

thelastdreamer

lolo883 said:

Oh girl I feel you. And then I had to redo mine so many times due to people backing out! 

What I ended up doing was splitting people into smaller groups, so while I might have had a group of 8 friends to sit together, I did 4 friends and 3 cousins instead. So everyone knew at least one other person/couple at their table in addition to their own date, even if the whole table didn't know each other. And I paired up those smaller groups by interest, like the few of my friends and few of H's friends seated together all play softball, or H's uncle who loves to hunt seated with my cousin who loves to hunt. So don't seat your cousin alone with strangers, but pull 3 or 4 other family members from another table to sit with him plus a few others, and backfill close friends (college roommates?) into the newly opened family tables.

Yeah I just can't do that because our wedding is basically all family except for those college friends. And there a lot of big families, like married couples with 3 and 4 kids that basically take up a whole table. And then there are elderly grandparents who HAVE to be seated with Aunt so and so because she's the only one who knows how to work grandpa's oxygen tank, etc. (Which is totally legit, don't get me wrong, just makes it even harder). I tried doing the split everyone into small groups and put them together, but we just don't really have many small groups to work with. And I can't rearrange our parents tables because they're paying for this deal and they get to sit with whoever they want or all crap will break lose. 

MandyMost

I feel like there has to be a better way to deal with the college friends. Are they all couples? If not, what about 8, 5, and 5? Or 8, 6 (don't need to fill the table), and 4? And for that one cousin, can't you squeeze in a 9th person at a different table? Or maybe forgo the king's table and just have your wedding party at regular tables of 8 as well? 

thelastdreamer

MandyMost said:

I feel like there has to be a better way to deal with the college friends. Are they all couples? If not, what about 8, 5, and 5? Or 8, 6 (don't need to fill the table), and 4? And for that one cousin, can't you squeeze in a 9th person at a different table? Or maybe forgo the king's table and just have your wedding party at regular tables of 8 as well? 

I have literally spent hours trying so many different things. There is no squeezing 9 people anywhere - it would be way too tight and elbows bumping while people tried to eat. Forgoing the king's table would just create a whole new set of problems because it seats 20 which would be two and a half more tables. I don't have an empty half table (only three empty seats in the room right now), so I'd have to get three round tables instead, which wouldn't fit in the room. Like I said, the main problem is that I don't have very many small groups. We only have 8 tables total, and all but the college friends tables and my parents tables are mainly filled by one largeish family of at least 5, so that only leaves 2-3 empty seats at each of those tables. I don't want to split up parents and kids - that just seems rude especially when the kids are under 12. 

theartistformerlyknownas

Guess you just need to tell your cousin he can't come anymore.

(kidding, of course!) Good luck!

thelastdreamer

Two of my college friends just called and said they were very sorry but something came up .... I'm sad they aren't coming but MY SEATING CHART WOES ARE SOLVED