Moving chairs

I’ve seen people do this plenty of times. As long as they do it quickly it’s no big deal.

I wanted to do it but my rental people, venue, and caterer all severely frowned upon me. Lol. I ended up just getting double chairs

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Did they really lol? Good to know, thank you!

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Awesome, thank you!

We got separate chairs for the ceremony and reception. I feel like it might be too chaotic seeing them move over 100 chairs (for our guest count) BUT I think it depends on where your cocktail hour is located and if guests can see the chairs being moved.

I don’t think it’s chaotic or looks bad (it’s what cocktail hour is for— to distract everyone while the grunt work happens! ), but as others have said, it will depend on your event staff. We spoke to one caterer that said they would do it, but the one we hired said we’d need 2 sets of chairs. While they happily handled all the set up, they needed their staff for food service at this time and there just weren’t extra/available bodies to move them. If your venue’s on board— absolutely go for it!!

I'm running into a similar situation as well. I'm just using chairs from a different vendor for our outdoor ceremony and the vendor will come pick them up. I worried it'd be too chaotic to try and potentially move 100 chairs since we're taking pictures between the ceremony and reception.

View Quoted Comment Haha yes! They said that it would be a huge hassle to worry about and that it would be way better to get double chairs. My family discouraged us with that as well.

If they've done it before it shouldn't be too chaotic. It really doesn't take long to move chairs. Stack a few, move a few. It'll get done in no time.

We have 50 chairs and we're doing something even MORE frowned-upon: having guests move them themselves! Scandalous, I know! We don't have any staff, it's all DIY and it's all just family. So they're moving the chairs about 15 feet inside from the yard to their table. Anyone who can't, obviously, won't have to, and the kids are going to have a blast moving chairs so we're thinking about paying them each a $2 bill to move chairs for the older folks.

I feel like that would be very chaotic and loud. Also, not pleasant for your guests to see if it is within view. We had 2 sets of chairs, one for ceremony and one for reception.

I don't think it is if your guests are gonna be standing elsewhere for cocktail hour or something of the sort

In my personal opinion it depends on the situation. I've been to weddings where it happened and we had on idea it was even happening. I think if you're having a cocktail hour, the guests will not see it happen or the venue staff will not have to walk through your guests to do it, I think it is fine. If there is a chance the venue staff has to walk through your guests with the chairs to move them, I can see it being a little chaotic.

I guess I’m so transparent that I wouldn’t care if my guests saw the transitioning happening. It Is going to have to happen at my venue as the space will be flipped. Clearly we aren’t moving from one venue to the next, so some kind of shift has to happen. Most guest figure that out when the reception and ceremony take place at the same venue.


If the staff is comfortable doing it then I would. If not then it could definitely lead to a potential disaster.

View Quoted Comment Good point Kaysey, there will be hors d’oeurves, so no one should care, thank you!

View Quoted Comment Cherry, I love it lol!! We do these kind of things at family parties, so why not at a wedding?!