Creating a Flawless Wedding Reception Seating Chart

Many wedding surveys report that seating chart creation ranks among the most stressful wedding planning task. It can be daunting for newly engaged couples to choose where their guests will sit and whom they will sit with, especially for those with large complicated families. The happy couple considers many people’s feelings and requests, and other people’s relationships play a factor (such as seating ex’s far apart) and making sure that divorced parents sit comfortably if one or both take a date to the wedding. The ‘family issues’ and diplomacy angle of creating a seating chart also joins up with the desire to make sure that groups of friends and family members can sit together and enjoy themselves more. But this ever-so-stressful task can be simpler with a few tricks from the wedding experts at The Manor.

Group Wedding Guests

Once RSVP’s are in and the guest list is finalized, one of the first steps towards creating a seating chart is grouping the guests. Some couples create groups of guests based on their relationships such as: family members, college friends, high school friends, co-workers, etc. They do not necessarily have to sit together, but creating these groupings can help couples get a picture of the types of guests and amount of each group. Alternately, some couples chose to group guests based on factors aside from how they met. Grouping guests by age, background, or common interests can help guests meet new people while avoiding any major issues.

Consider the Ballroom Layout

The question of ‘how do I make a wedding seating chart?’ gets solved much more easily due to the trend of planning your ballroom layout with different sizes of tables, such as some 14-seaters and some 8-seaters. There’s no rule saying that all of your guest tables have to be the same size, and in fact, it’s far more on-trend to have different sizes, shapes and even heights of guest tables at a wedding.

Some ballrooms allow for the incorporation of long tables, at which dozens of guests can sit. A beautiful perk that long tables offer, aside from seating chart help, is the opportunity for lush floral arrangements and candelabras extending down the length of the tables. You cannot bring to life this elaborate and dramatic effect with individual floral centerpieces on round tables. Long tables and different sizes of tables let you group your guests more easily, which makes them far happier at your wedding than if friends who haven’t seen each other in years sit far apart at different tables.

Seating Chart Traditions

There are a few trends and traditions that can help couples create their seating arrangements, but they by no means have to be included. For example, wedding party members can either sit at the sweetheart table or with their dates among the guests. Couples may include a singles table for single friends to get to know each other, or can scatter them throughout so no one feels uncomfortable. Some couples choose to have a kid’s table, while others prefer kids sit with their parents and can be supervised.

Many couples include several parents’ tables. There’s no rule saying there should only be two parents’ tables. If any parents are separated, divorced, remarried, or bringing a date to the wedding, couples can solve that tricky parents’ table dilemma by having three or four parents’ tables, with each parent getting his or her own table, at which grandparents and their close friends and relatives can sit with them.

Don’t Overthink It

Though it is a stressful process that involves considering emotions and relationships, the seating chart is not as important as it may seem. In reality, guests are only sitting at their assigned table for a fraction of the event, and there likely will not be any issues. Guests are attending to celebrate the bride and groom and usually won’t make a scene about seating arrangements. It is certainly not the most important part of the day, so take a deep breath when trying to solve the puzzle of seating charts. For more expert tips and tricks on seating arrangements, contact the wedding planners at The Manor today!