Traditional seating.

heroeswearbrown · December 2011

Okay, so quick question. For those married folks, did you do the traditional seating separation, bride's family on one side, groom's on the other? For those still planning, what are your intentions about it?

Here's my thinking. Our church was built in the 70's and as a result is very asymmetrical, i.e. half of the pews are centered right in front of the alter and the other half are kinda off to the side. So I've been thinking about just directing and asking people to sit anywhere on the floor level of the church, sans relational distinction. My desire for doing this is two fold, a.) because the church is asymmetrical, I want people to make sure they sit where they are comfortable, and b.) I really want my FMIL to stop being obnoxious about the fact that all of our mutual friends are sitting on her side because most of her family won't be coming down for the wedding.

I have no problem with them sitting there, but she's practically yelling about it and demanding it every time we mention someone we want to invite to the wedding.

Thoughts?

2010Bride2be · December 2011

We really didn't do a bride or grooms side. The only thing we did do is the first pew, we had my immediate family and DH's immediately family on our respective sides. But from the second pew and back, it was all mixed up. We just told our ushers to sit people as they came in and to alternate sides.

StephLove12 · December 2011

I'm putting a sign like this up at ours. FI's family is SMALL. His sides guests are only like 25% of our guest list. That would look awkward to me.

jmorford · December 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_plus-sized_traditional-seating?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:973cdc6f-961e-4fb0-a628-bef2bb559697Discussion:333a737f-3344-4ce9-bd91-2871afbb086ePost:01eab8cc-9c00-4cd7-8969-f4547ca22b4e">Re: Traditional seating.</a>:
[QUOTE]I'm putting a sign like this up at ours. FI's family is SMALL. His sides guests are only like 25% of our guest list. That would look awkward to me.
Posted by StephLove12[/QUOTE]

we had our ushers seat to "the best avaliable view of the altar"
we had 70 guests and 50 of them were my side. so having b+g sides would have been ridiculous.

AmethystMSU · December 2011

We had 185ish chairs set up for 170 guests. About 60% of the guests were from my side, 30% from his side, and 10% mutual (but more "my" friends). So naturally 60-70% of the people can't fit on one side of a symmetrically set up room of chairs with only 15ish extra chairs.

For the most part, H's people were on his side but of course my people had to fill in the rest. I think the GMs sat guests based on side and then put the run off of my side onto "his" side.

It really doesn't matter. If you want it to be more even, I like J.Mo's description about the best view. It makes sense.

Just make sure you reserve the first row (or however many you need) for VIPs - parents, grandparents, siblings not in the WP, etc.

heroeswearbrown · December 2011

Okay, good. I'm glad I wouldn't be alone with this. My main motivation is to just get FMIL to stop being obnoxious, and secondarily, FI's been a part of my family for a while now, so even if his family can't make it, he's got plenty of family here in town anyway, legal or not. :-)

Cony&Ben · December 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_plus-sized_traditional-seating?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:973cdc6f-961e-4fb0-a628-bef2bb559697Discussion:333a737f-3344-4ce9-bd91-2871afbb086ePost:5ef9a86b-1766-402f-9d50-e93a97893fe9">Re: Traditional seating.</a>:
[QUOTE]We really didn't do a bride or grooms side. The only thing we did do is the first pew, we had my immediate family and DH's immediately family on our respective sides. But from the second pew and back, it was all mixed up. We just told our ushers to sit people as they came in and to alternate sides.
Posted by 2010Bride2be[/QUOTE]
This is what we will be doing since FI's family only makes up about 15% of our guest list.

faerylvr27 · December 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_plus-sized_traditional-seating?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:973cdc6f-961e-4fb0-a628-bef2bb559697Discussion:333a737f-3344-4ce9-bd91-2871afbb086ePost:01eab8cc-9c00-4cd7-8969-f4547ca22b4e">Re: Traditional seating.</a>:
[QUOTE]I'm putting a sign like this up at ours. FI's family is SMALL. His sides guests are only like 25% of our guest list. That would look awkward to me.
Posted by StephLove12[/QUOTE]

I really LOVE that sign! I might have to borrow it :)

km2124 · December 2011

we aren't doing sides either!

becka717 · December 2011

At FSILs wedding in July, only the first few rows were reserved and split between bride and groom (first row parents and grandparents, second row siblings, I think aunts and uncles were third row, but just because they got there early and wanted to sit near the front). The rest were told basically to sit where ever they wanted.

katiebaka · December 2011

I think organically our families will gravitate towards "their" sides, though we're not instructing the ushers to split them. Our guest list pretty much split down the middle of our families.

It's going to be a tight fit in our church...so we're thinking our ushers will just be filing people in from the front as they get there, to make sure there's the appropriate number of people in each pew.

Browneyes72 · December 2011

We will not be doing the bride/groom side seating either. We will be dong something similar to the sign. We will probably reserve the first few pews for parents, children, siblings.

meofmanynames · December 2011

My family is probably twice as big as my FI's family, so the idea of doing sides is pretty ridiculous. Ushers will probably seat to the best seat available.

kwrecks · December 2011

Nope. Like most of the PPs, my family is wayyy bigger than H's, and we didn't have ushers, but my young cousins were handing out programs and letting people know they can sit wherever they wanted.

starree444 · December 2011

I'm having every sit at their tables for the ceremony... I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work yet, but it will!

TripleJTobe · December 2011

Steph & Jmor- Great ideas!!!!! I may just have to snag them :oD

kathleenkmm · December 2011

I like the idea of seating to the best available view! I think we're going to reserve the first three or four pews on each side for family members and after that seat to best available. We're having a Catholic ceremony but nobody in his family is Catholic and only about 25% of our friends are so hopefully having everyone more spread out will make it easier to know when to sit and stand.

Traditional seating.

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