Seating Plans - are they needed?

penad5 · March 2010

i've been kinda messing around with my seating plan, (i haven't even sent out invites but i was board on night) and i'm starting to think it's not worth the hassle. I mean people can find places to sit without me telling them where they have to sit. So i'm considering not doing one, maybe just reserving a couple tables for parents and grandparents and then adding an extra table since there may end up being a couple tables with 1 seat left and i wouldn't want people to have to sit away from their guest.

has anyone seen this - has chaos ensued? Or did everything just work out?

ring_pop · March 2010

I'm not a fan of unassigned seating. I went to a wedding with a setup like that and it seemed like every seat available was reserved for someone's friend or relative. My H and I didn't know anyone else there and ended up eating standing.

If you think it's a hassle to you now (when you know everyone, and you've got time to think about it)... think how much more of a hassle it will be to your guests the night of. You don't need to assign every single seat; you can just put your guests into groups and assign them tables.

In any case, if you really go the unassigned seating route, at least provide 15-20% extra seating (for example, if you have 100 guests, I'd provide a full 2 extra tables of 10).

Mel_23 · March 2010

Personally I think that it is worth the trouble to do a seating plan. I've only been to one wedding where there wasn't one and my guest and I ended up sitting at a table with older peple we had nothing in common with. The wedding was good but dinner was fairly awkward because it was hard to strike up a conversation. At other weddings where I didn't know many of the other guests, the seating plan was helpful because the bride put us at a table with guests who had some common interests or were the same age. It made the experience more fun and I appreciated the thought the bride put into it. I also think for a sit down dinner people usually expect a seating plan. If you don't do one then you I agree that the extra tables are a great idea.

lalap69 · March 2010

I agree with PP. I helped my sister with her seating arrangements and it really wasn't as big of a hassle as you might expect, but it could end up really stressful for your guests on the day of, and why would you want to put them through that?

If you find it stressful, you could make stickers with all of your guests' names on them and move them around on a board. Put families together and young people together and work from there. GL!

silversparks · March 2010

I definitely believe in seating plans, agree with everything that PPs have said.
However, I don't think it matters if every table has exactly the same number of people. For our wedding, although we could techinically seat 10 at every table, just based on our actual guest list, we had tables of between 8 and 10 guests. It might have cost us an extra center-piece, but it was worth the extra bit of flexibility (especially when people were late getting in those reply cards!). Your guests will definitely appreciate the extra effort (which honestly, unless you're inviting 500 people it won't take that long), and considering that most of your family and friends are probably nice people with basic social skills, most of them can sit through a meal with each other and find something to talk about. Like how happy they are to be there to celebrate with you.

miellen · March 2010

I believe in seating plans too - I went to a wedding where they left the seating plan at home!! It was complete chaos and a lot of people were left out and upset that they had to run and find the best seat possible. I wouldn't want that to happen at my wedding.

penad5 · March 2010

Thanks - i actually sat down and you are all right it wasn't that hard - and i even added an extra table so i have a couple tables with 6 instead of 8 so i had more room to move people if i thought they might not be a good fit together

Seating Plans - are they needed?

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