I need to vent! Just got back from a wedding this weekend to which I took a flight, in order to be my long-distance fiances date. He was a groomsman and I don't get to see him that often, and I have spent some time with the bride and groom before.
The entire weekend the wedding party was separated from us dates. It was fine (I was even a good sport about the FOUR HOUR GAP between ceremony and reception for bridal party pictures where I was all alone in the hotel) until I arrived at the reception and learned that the head table would NOT include the dates of the wedding party.
Then the DJ made an announcement after dinner to have myself and another excluded groomsman' date cut the cake, so basically once I could finally hang out with my fiancé whom I rarely get to see and flew here to be with as his date, I was essentially publicly coerced into doing a task that would again separate us. I admit I had agreed in advance to cut the cake, however, the bride and groom had told me the cake cutting would occur before the reception and i figured it would help give me something to do while the wedding party took pictures. Well no, it ended up being during the reception.
Luckily my fiancé made every chance to be with me during dinner and he ended up helping me cut the cake. But I'm still fantasizing about revenge seating charts at our wedding to separate them (the groom will be a groomsman in our). Obviously I won't stoop to that level but it's fun to think about.
Oh and I had to take a vacation day to get to the wedding, give up family 4th of July plans (which I was ok wth when I made the apparently ridiculous assumption I could sit with fiancé at dinner), they had a honey fund, and I (gladly at the time) helped out with reception set up, AND after the reception the mother of the bride was recruiting guests to clean up and fold all their rental items.
Re: Head table excluding dates
I don't get why people do this. If I were your Fi I would have just moved to sit next to you regardless of where I was "assigned."
Formerly martha1818
I loathe the idea of "head tables" to begin with. We aren't having assigned seating at all (I see no point unless you are having a seated meal with pre-requested entree options) and frankly I don't see us even having much time to sit and eat. We'll mingle and visit as many tables as possible and eat while we chat, just like I do at work. It's like having a couple dozen dinner dates by the end of the night
I'd assign tables (not seats) and let everyone figure out how to "mingle" from there.
I've actually been wondering about this situation. I really wanted to include all of the bridal party's dates at the head table but I don't think we'd be able to fit over 20 people at one table.. (Assuming our bridal party is 5 on each side)
I obviously haven't thought too much about it, the wedding is still far away, but I was curious what you did or are planning to do. I will be having assigned seats, and I don't think I'd want to have a "sweetheart table" with just the groom and I.
Something I thought about was make a smaller head table with only MOH & BM and their dates instead?
My first wedding I did the sweetheart table and I have to be honest, I enjoyed some quiet sanity and the ability to eat my food before making the rounds.
I once attended a wedding for my FI friend in which he was best man. We had hosted his friend at our house in California when he proposed to his out of state girlfriend. At the wedding my BF was seated at the head table and I was at some random singles table that didn't even get cake. Even worse the DJ recruited the bridal party to dance with each other and do a bunch of stupid activities so I sat alone all night. Worst wedding ever..