Ceremony Seating Dilemma

ravenblue83

I am going to be moving out of the country to marry my fianc'e and to live there and I know for a fact that when we get married, I will have no friends or family (minus my parents) traveling to my wedding.
I really don't want to have uneven seating at the ceremony, so bad that 60 people are sitting on one side and only 3 on the other. How do I go about directing the ushers to seat people on both sides for the ceremony and how do I do this without insulting or perplexing the guests (since they will be more my fiance's friends than mine)?

Maggie0829

Just don't designate sides.  Just tell your ushers to start filling in the seats evenly on both sides no matter the relation.

I personally hate the idea of having a brides side and a grooms side.  A wedding is about families coming together so they should all be mixed in together.

funandfreckles

Don't have "sides". We're not. I mean, my family will sit at the front on one side, and his on the other, but other than that - sit wherever there's room.

DramaGeek

We told our ushers to fill in evenly from the front toward the back, regardless of sides.  It worked out really well.

Meegles4

What Maggie said. My dad's entire extended family sat on the groom's 'side'. Not sure how or why that happened, but it's NBD.

pokepoke27

We had a similar situation. H's family is all in England and they travelled here for the wedding. MIL, BIL, SIL and her H were the only ones to come. BIL, SIL, and her H were all in the wedding party. That would have left only MIL on the "grooms side". While it would have probably been pretty amusing to an outsider to see a wedding with 65 people on one side and one person on the other, I didn't want to do that to my poor MIL. Instead I just had the front row reserved for parents, grandparents, and dates/family of my WP. 

SunriseAmber

I don't want sides either at my wedding. There are a few ideas on pinterest in how to handle this situation. I like the idea with the sign that says something like "Two families are coming together. No need to select a side, just a seat".

I can't link because I don't have access to pinterest at work. But i think an idea like that is cute.

OliveOilsMom

This was our situation as well, except it was my husband's side that was smaller than mine.  We had open seating.  We also did not have ushers.  We attached a nice sign to the basket our programs were in saying there was open seating.

TaraKeeley

Similar issue with us! I'll have between 2 and 5 people for me, while he'll have 30. No assigned spots for us.