Tips for Creating the Perfect Seating Chart

We know how frus­trat­ing cre­at­ing a seat­ing chart can be, if you’re choos­ing to have one. By the end, you’ll be pulling out your hair and that will not be a good wed­ding look. In an effort to avoid that dis­as­ter, we’ve pooled togeth­er some of our best seat­ing chart tips to help ease that stress just a lit­tle bit.

Use one of three things to indicate the seats of your guests

1. Place cards — Cards with your guests’ names on them at their seat
2. Escort cards — Cards with your guests’ names (either orga­nized by table num­ber or with the table num­ber on the card) locat­ed at the entrance for your guests to pick up and take to their seat
3. Seat­ing chart — A list of tables and guest dis­played at the entrance

Print out or draw a layout of your space

You can also do this on a com­put­er, if you’d rather not have a phys­i­cal ver­sion, but hav­ing a phys­i­cal piece of paper (and sticky notes) allows you to move guests around with ease and see how the space is going to work.

Color Code

Pre­vi­ous­ly, I just men­tioned sticky notes. This is a great way to move around and keep track of the guests you’re try­ing to sit­u­ate. Do dif­fer­ent col­ors for the bride’s fam­i­ly, the groom’s fam­i­ly, and friends. You can also fur­ther break down friends how­ev­er you see fit.

Avoid placing older guests near the dance floor

Old­er will more than like­ly spend more time at the table than your younger guests. You want to make sure your grand­par­ents and oth­er old­er guests are away from loud speak­ers and such a high traf­fic area like the dance floor.

Don’t separate friends too much

While you may want to mix up your guests to force them into meet­ing new peo­ple and talk­ing, if you mix too much, your guests will just end up not hav­ing as much fun.

Have a children’s table

If you’re invit­ing a lot of chil­dren to your wed­ding, it could be a great idea to have a sep­a­rate children’s table to relieve some of the stress on the par­ents of said par­ents.

Mix in the singles

If you have a sin­gles’ table, there’s a chance these guests will feel a lit­tle like they were just left­overs stuck togeth­er. By mix­ing them in, there’s a bet­ter chance of them hav­ing a good time.

Don’t forget about your wedding party’s dates

It’s fine to have a table for just the wed­ding par­ty, these are your clos­est friends, after all. How­ev­er, you can’t for­get about their dates. Plac­ing them togeth­er or near­by is prob­a­bly a good idea.

Overflow Space

There’s a pret­ty good chance some­one who didn’t RSVP will show up or some­one you didn’t expect to bring a date inevitably will. For instances like these, it’s a good idea to have a ded­i­cat­ed table or to leave an extra seat at a few tables. Either that or have a few lawn chairs stored in a clos­et (not rec­om­mend­ed). Per­haps your over­flow table can also be where your wait­staff and oth­er ven­dors take their break to eat dinner—they need to be includ­ed too!

How­ev­er you choose to orga­nize, we sug­gest try­ing not to stress too much about it. Think­ing too hard will only add to your load. You have enough to wor­ry about while wed­ding plan­ning. At the end of the day, the most impor­tant thing is for you and your guests to have a great time. No one is going to remem­ber where they sat if your food and music are top notch.

Fea­tured image by David and Sarah Lynn

If you’re still putting off groom’s and grooms­men suits or tux­es, then it’s def­i­nite­ly get­ting close to that time. We can guar­an­tee a great rent­ing expe­ri­ence and a great fit. See what we have to offer to make your union extra­or­di­nary.

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