Ceremony to Reception Transition

I hope I made this coherent enough to elicit some advice! Lol

What will the guest be doing while you are taking pictures? Please don't make them work.

Who are the volunteers that are moving these chairs?

What does the venue typically do to transition the room?

You absolutely should have a seating chart. 100 people is not small and not having a seating chart (you can just assign tables and not specific chairs) leads to a ton of confusion. Not to mention you'll need extra tables so couples and families aren't split up.

It works best with our families not to have a seating chart. We are from small town Oklahoma and I have never even been to a wedding that had a seating chart. Honestly, I think our families would be offended if we told them where they have to sit lol

The volunteers would be my mom, FMIL, my brother, and my sister (who is my only bridesmaid/MOH) they are the ones who suggested the chair transition but I don't like the idea of them having to do that when they should be celebrating! I think I like the idea of having the room set up for the reception to eliminate the need for the transition at all.

And we were going to go ahead and let the guests start getting their drinks and food because we are only having hor d'oeuvres because it's going to be about 8pm when the reception starts.

I had my wedding last weekend in the same room as the reception. Guests sat themselves without seating charts at tables, and then some left for our receiving line and to get food (a few stayed behind and went the other way to get food). It was fine.

@Steffany how did you set up the room? Did you have it all combined, or was it separated spaces?

You might want to look into cabaret style seating. Where the guests will sit at the tables for the ceremony as well. I've seen it done before and no one has to move anything around.

My friend did this and everybody sat at their tables for both the ceremony and reception. After the ceremony another girl and I were helping our friend with the day so she had us pass out cookies (don't recommend. Was not fun to do it with everyone sitting there. She didn't want to do it beforehand because she thought they would dry out. I think they would've been fine. But yeah don't make your guests work during the transition, we didn't really appreciate it) and they walked around and greeted every table individually then dinner started. It was pretty chill.

I'm having everyone sit at their tables, and am creating a table seating chart (can sit in whichever seat, as long as at that table) for the ceremony. My venue can only fit 40 chairs on the dance floor to create an "aisle," and I'm having about 150 guests. I feel the need to set up a seating chart like this though because there is tension between a few people, and its also a way to ensure that our parents/grandparents are up front.

Have everyone sit at the tables, since you do not have staff to do the room change. It would definitely be rude to just tell guests to "grab a chair" and your closest family and friends in formal clothes who should be enjoying a cocktail should not have to "volunteer" to set up your reception while other guests get to enjoy cocktail hour.

After the end of the ceremony, you, the bridal party and the parents will process out and go take your pictures.