Suffering from seating disorders? The Ryan’s don’t talk to the Walsh’s, your best friends are divorced†¦ You have gone through all that to make sure they will not have to sit together. But seating troubles won’t stop there, no matter how much you have organized it.
These are some ideas taken from David Tutera’s “The Party Planer” to help you expect the unexpected.
A few extra table cards, place cards, a pen that matches the ink of your calligrapher and a patient wedding planner will also be essential to save the day.
-The most common seating-related conflict: a guest shows up with someone nobody expected.
David Tutera proposes designate a certain table as a “swing table” and add two extra place settings to it. If you don’t need those extra place settings in the end, you can just have them removed. Other option is leaving some extra room at a swing table.
-One of your guests can’t make it, in the last minute.
One guest less is much easier to deal with than an extra guest. Just have the caterer remove a place setting. If the guest was at an “important” table, you can fill in the other spot by moving someone from another table.
-Your guests wander around not knowing where their tables are.
Especially if we are talking about a big event, the best way to get everybody organized in time is to designate a few guides to help them get to their tables.
Making sure the tables are numbered in a logic order is also very important.
-Someone goes bananas because he or she is not seating at a good table.
Numbering the tables will actually be also the best way of eliminating the feeling of “good” tables and “bad” tables. Number them according to their position in the room so the bride and groom table doesn’t need to be the number 1. This way the number of the tables doesn’t indicate the rank anymore. It’s more equal and nobody will feel offended.
-One of the guests doesn’t have an assigned table.
Well, everybody makes mistakes. A wedding is not a birthday party so it’s normal, this kind of things happen. To avoid this embarrassing situation, go over you seating chart and your list of attendance, not once or twice but a hundred times.
