Bespoke Brides Guide to Seating Your Wedding Guests.

If you have opted to create a seating plan, then you are currently learning just how difficult they can be to put together. For a huge majority of people, deciding on where to seat your guests will take up a huge amount of time and energy and can suck the life right out of you.

I’m not saying this will be the case for everyone, I’m hoping that most of you will be lucky enough to have families and friends that actually like each other, but many will have guests attending their wedding that may have rather delicate or explosive relationships with one another.

So how exactly should you tackle the seating plan if this is in fact the case? Firstly don’t be influenced by family feuds. You have a limited amount of space and can only have a certain number of tables, your guests should respect this, so organise them as you want them in relation to where you are sat and their importance to you. It’s your wedding after all and that’s what it should be about, family feuds can do one for this very special day!

If you want to bin the traditional top table idea, then a great alternative is to let each set of parent’s host their own table and you sit with your wedding party made up of your ushers, best men and bridesmaids. This works really well if you have parents that are divorced and you feel it might be difficult to have both parents on the same table. This seating plan will also be handy if your bridesmaids are from different areas of your life, let them host their own tables, for example your oldest friend could host the old school friends table, your university buddy could host the table for the rest of your university pals and your sister could host the family table.

If you like the idea of members of your family and wedding party hosting their own tables but, feel that this leaves you and your new husband or wife at a loose end as to where to sit, then cue the sweetheart table. A small intimate table set up to allow you to enjoy your first meal together as husband and wife on your own.

You may find that your seating plan is fairly easy to do but there is just one or two of your guests that you are struggling to find space for, these usually consist of your single friends or the odd friend you kept in contact with from your old job. Here are some hints to help you seat your final guests:

♥ Try to seat your guests next to at least one person they will know, if this isn’t possible then try to ensure that your guest is sat with likeminded people or people of a similar age.

♥ Do not be tempted to play match maker and seat all your single guests together, this will be too obvious and the chances are your guests are going be offended.

♥ Avoid having a table made up entirely of people that don’t fit into certain groups. Weddings are a chance to mingle and get to know others but this will be too much pressure.

Many of the decisions on where to seat people will be influenced by the shape and space available at your venue as well as the size and shape of your tables. Round tables are probably the most sociable option, as everyone is facing one another it makes it easier to have a good natter. If you are having long tables the situation does tend to get a little more difficult when it comes to the seating plan, as the only people your guests can talk to are those sat next to them or directly in front of them. In this case you really do need to make sure that your guests are sat next to people they know or at least have something in common with otherwise your guests are likely to feel quite uncomfortable.

We hope that you have found our guide to the seating plan useful, now you can begin thinking of ways to display your seating plan. To save you some time we have found 15 Alternative and Unique seating plans. There really is something there for everyone so be sure to check it out.

Now it’s your turn…let us know how you have tackled the seating plan, are you struggling and you could do with some help or was the seating plan a breeze? Whatever your experiences we would love to know.

Much Bespoke Love